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Is Thunderlord's Decree too good to be a mastery?

SettDownShutUp··18 votes·1,789 views

Thunderlord's decree is causing a massive shift in playstyles across the board. Champs that were supposed to be sustain suddenly have a burst of damage that increases with stats you already collect. What was once considered more 'supportive' skills like Nasus' 'Spirit Fire' and Miss Fortune's notorious 'Make it Rain' have turned into abilities that you can not afford to take three ticks of damage from.

What's more, AD champions now have a proc that produces magic damage, bypassing any potential armor the opposing player has decidedly bought to help defend himself.

We're seeing situations where champions like Graves and Rengar have instant kill combos, though with the introduction of the item 3147 I'm beginning to think Riot is okay with this.

Games are much faster, team-fights decided in the blink of an eye instead of an 'actual' fight. It makes 1 player caught out of place immediately punishing, with very little chance or time for assistance by other players to come and save the day. I personally can tell you Thunderlord's has saved me from more than a few 2v1 top-lane ganks by outright killing my opponent the moment I see the jungler coming.

And y'know I'm not the one to say whether or not this is what League just 'is' now. What do you guys think?

18 Comments

Rebonack8 votes

It isn't just Thunderlord's.

Deathfire is too shitty to compete and the flat penetration mastery is miles better than the two %pen masteries combined.

Riot should make Thunderlord's single target and Deathfire get its full damage on AoE effects.

Then combine the two %pen masteries and move the flat pen over to the red tree. Add a flat AP/AD mastery in its place on the blue side.

ManiacalCoyote1 votes

And, have Deathfire apply on AA modifiers. Like Nasus' Q

La Barbotte4 votes

all keystones are too good to be masteries, they could be on items....

morris11 votes

Welcome to Dota2

La Barbotte1 votes

we need refresher orb, rito plz Zed i need three ults

MunchCrunchLunch4 votes

its free damage that isn't situational.

Abyssphere4 votes

Most of your points don't make sense and show you don't have a very up to date understanding of the mastery.

"What was once considered more 'supportive' skills like Nasus' 'Spirit Fire' and Miss Fortune's notorious 'Make it Rain' have turned into abilities that you can not afford to take three ticks of damage from."

It is very rare for Nasus to take Thunderlord's Decree and even when it was popular on him it was a terrible choice. Turning the damage on Spirit Fire from meaningless to vaguely worthwhile is not worth a keystone slot, especially when you are going deep into a tree you really don't care about to do that. He was always best off using Grasp of the Undying or at a push, Stormraider's. AP Miss Fortune support doesn't exist anymore and TLD on Make It Rain isn't that spectacular on ADC Miss Fortune, it's just nice.

"What's more, AD champions now have a proc that produces magic damage, bypassing any potential armor the opposing player has decidedly bought to help defend himself."

This doesn't matter. AD assassins itemise for huge amounts of pen so against squishy targets it's arguably a bad thing that TLD is magic damage and against tanks it's completely irrelevant because the amount of damage is so low. ADCs with Thunderlord's deal such overwhelming amounts of damage from their autos that Thunderlord's is a meaningless drop in the ocean. Itemising against AD characters with Thunderlord's is not more difficult than it should be.

"I personally can tell you Thunderlord's has saved me from more than a few 2v1 top-lane ganks by outright killing my opponent the moment I see the jungler coming."

Good. I'm glad the mastery you brought did something useful for you in that game, particularly as your opponent played the gank badly by getting into a dangerous position before their jungler arrived.

Thunderlord's is perfectly fine. It's not crowding out other keystones anymore and it's only ever taken on champions for whom it makes sense now. If someone uses Thunderlord's on a champion that seems strange then you can now be pretty confident that they made a bad choice and probably don't know what they're doing. Personally whenever I see something like a Thunderlord's Nasus (to use an example you mentioned) I'm happy because I know that they've brought a worthless keystone to the game and late game they'll be way easier to bring down than they would be if they'd brought Grasp of the Undying or Strength of the Ages.

SettDownShutUp2 votes

Good analysis, but I think it's still crowding out the other keystones. Perhaps it's because it's been in the public's eye long enough that it's just deemed op and people should pick even if there's better options. Not for me to say,

Dar Raksada1 votes

{quoted}

Good analysis, but I think it's still crowding out the other keystones. Perhaps it's because it's been in the public's eye long enough that it's just deemed op and people should pick even if there's better options. Not for me to say,

Thunderlords is a great generalist skill, and cdr reliant champs are likely to take that tree, which is useful in general. So it makes sense that you'd see it often.

Orangesilk3 votes

Not just that, but champions who used to be "Strong sustain bullies" now find themselves unable due to sustain, due to the added damage of trades via thunderlords, and rather weak on the bullying side due to not having good Thunderlord synergy.

Yorick Chogath Aatrox

xl Kirito lx2 votes

imo, keystones were a step backwards with the masteries system. S5, if I went support Annie, I could choose 0-9-21 if I wanted gold gen / utility. I could go 21-0-9, if I wanted to burst down a poke lane. I could go 0-21-9 if I wanted to survive an all-in lane. Admittantly, the utility tree was slightly weaker then the other two, but offense and defense were both viable choices.

Now, every champion has a specific keystone that best suits them. There's minor variation, such as Fervor of Battle / Thunderlords on ADCs, but beyond that, everyone knows what mastery they should have. The cunning tree is overstacked also. 12 points gives you dangerous game and executioner. On most laners, it's impossible not to dive into that tree, even going 18 in ferocity or Resolve. It feels like there's significantly less choices, compared to S5.

Rabid Husky1 votes

it really is a step back in terms of diversity so i agree, however every champ does have specific keystones for them but that doesn't stop teams from 5 man thunderlord spam seriously i ran into like 5 different teams with it on everyone just the other day. also blood lords is the adc keystone fervor is more fighter oriented since melees just need 4 hits as opposed to 8. cunning needs a honest to god looking at it its almost mandatory regardless of what you're using, with butcher assassin/total biscuits executioner/meditation and dangerous game/bandit its a tougher choice of which one to pick one over the other than another tree. maybe thats why thunderlords is so good right now as well cuz the tree offers so much instead of making you sacrificing something for TL

Luxrath2 votes

Instant kill with rengar? After nerf? Dude have we been playing the same game? How obscenely fed would you have to be to kill someone that fast with his clunky shit now...

agbudar2 votes

funny i think that fervor is waay to op especially on XinZhao MasterYi but there are plenty of others who also use it very well

Creas1 votes

Its all the new keystones who are sort of OP. They add so much damage to champions, and the champions themself havent changed. This just means you can kill alot quicker in season 6 then before and it makes for very different games.

Saianna1 votes

9/10 players in game disagrees

Last one still uses deathfire grasp

PokladnicaZla1 votes

Why just not make Thunderlords proc on spell/empowered AA abilities and not regular AAs. Mages could use somekind of lovetap and some champions have already enough damagge in their kits. EDIT:Sometimes I see a whole team using TLD,like wtf?

Quepha1 votes

Have you not played in the last three patches? Thunderlord's is fine now relative to other keystones and you generally only see 2 or 3 champions take it per game.

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