@Riot: Thunderlord's Decree needs rebalanced

DISCLAIMER: Before you think I'm some kind of butthurt anti-meta whiner that lost at less than 30 minutes to Thunderlord's Decree's early game damage, let it be said that I have not lost a game, or even really got destroyed by Thunderlord's Decree. In fact, I can't really think of a time that it's seriously influenced a game I was in... My concern is not that it gives too much power for it to be balanced... my main point is that it is the only thing people take, unless they're playing tank. I don't see anyone play Deathfire Touch, Stormraider's Surge, Windspeaker's Blessing (except on Mundo), or Warlord's Bloodlust. Why? Because everyone's picking Thunderlord's Decree.

Now, hear me out; I know it's not at "problematic" levels like on the launch of the new masteries... however, that doesn't change what people think about it. Whether they don't read patch notes, or they truly think that this "Thunderlord" is their lord and savior from elo hell, there is no diversity of masteries.

I get it, it's good that people are using the cunning tree; no one really used the utility tree other than for supports... I like how the trees can provide different gameplay styles, and can sometimes encourage people to peacemeal it to fit their champion or playstyle... I know my loadout for Jungle Sion dabbles in all of the trees, after grabbing the Keystone from Resolve that allows me to double-down on my health stacking passive for a little while. However, with thunderlord's decree, along with the cooldown reduction mastery allowing champions to have a cdr of 45%, a problem emerges. Even if people can't make Tlord work on some champions like burst mages with no combo potential, they still do it because they think that extra little 5% cdr can be enough to proc tlord enough times to make it good.

And I know what Thunderlord's Decree is supposed to be. It's supposed to be a good early game and all-round mastery. Got a good poke support that can chain some autos and abilities? Go thunderlord. Got a combo mage, or one that can easily incorporate autos into their combo? Go thunderlord's. I get it, it's viable for a few reasons. For instance, it does chunk damage, which not only makes it attractive because you can visibly see its effectiveness, but also because it's harder to avoid the damage with a heal... for instance, with Deathfire Touch's damage over time. It also is better when you're behind in gold; you'll deal decent damage based on your level, so it's a really safe mastery.

The problem is it's too safe; I get the need for a dependable damage spell, but it's too good... either that, or all of the other damage masteries aren't strong enough for people to notice... despite the fact that I doubt you wouldn't notice your attack speed going up by 40%, but that's beside the point. I thought these keystone masteries would spawn a bunch of different options, but thunderlord's created the perfect storm of factors that lead to stagnant mastery loadouts.

...that pun was totally intentional, by the way.

Anyway, you have a mastery that became so popular because it was actually objectively better in most situations, and it wasn't taken out. Rather, it's no longer objectively better, but everyone still takes it because it hasn't changed much and is so safe they think the others aren't worth it. I'm not one that will just stand idly by and say "This needs fixed, figure it out," so at least allow me to pose a solution.

Take off the ap and ad scaling.

Once you do this, Thunderlord's decree becomes less of a skill for everyone, and more of a skill for champions that need a little extra damage or poke to go with their utility. The gap between the scaling on thunderlord's and deathfire touch is significant, but not enough to really cement deathfire as the serious damage mastery that you might want to use instead of thunderlord's decree. Increasing the damage scaling with regards to champion level can keep it from becoming totally irrelevant, but without scaling with ap or ad, it loses it's appeal to mages and assassins, while also making it very attractive for supports that have cc chains that don't build damage and are using the cunning tree a lot anyways.

Or maybe this is just the ramblings of a terrible player who doesn't know anything about balancing... what do you think? Rioter or not, feel free to tell me what you think, about the situation with thunderlord's decree, my suggestion, what you think riot will do about... or will they do anything about it at all? Go ahead and tell me below, if you're so inclined.

Also, if anyone saw the copy of this thread, I deleted the last one because I accidentally put only 2 poll options, both of them saying "yes, thinderlord's needs rebalanced," but didn't include any that say it's fine where it is. Derp.