It's the reason damage and burst has crept so hard, it's the reason AD carries feel too vulnerable, and it's the reason cheese builds work on the wrong people. Full damage insert bruiser with high AD ratios that isn't Riven exists because of Thunderlords. If your character does damage quickly, take Thunderlords. I feel like so many mages probably want to take something else but Thunderlords is just way, way too good.
EndlessSorcerer20 votesThunderlord's Decree is part of the issue, but the mastery system as a whole is the real issue.
Have you ever actually looked through the Ferocity and Cunning trees to check how much raw damage amplification (and bonus damage) you can actually get?
It is quite high.
Jbels15 votesThunderlord's Decree is part of the issue, but the mastery system as a whole is the real issue.
Have you ever actually looked through the Ferocity and Cunning trees to check how much raw damage amplification (and bonus damage) you can actually get?
It is quite high.
and Riot says that idealy they want 5 trees instead of 3. OOOOOOOOOOOH BOY.
Ralanr18 votes5 trees could actually help diversify things and lower general damage as a whole while better rewarding conditional damage.
And we might get an actual utility tree.
Spoofghoul1 voteswe might get an actual tank tree
we don't have one yet
MadManApocalypse1 votes5 trees could actually help diversify things and lower general damage as a whole while better rewarding conditional damage.
And we might get an actual utility tree.
I'd love to see a tree thats objective/gold based, going 18 with it on a support would be nice. Say things like relic shield as a mastery but at a reduced effect or maybe something that gives a red (Pink) ward slot/potion slot, increased gold + xp for killing/helping with scuttle/tower/rift/baron
Definitely would make more supports roam.
LankPants5 votesIf you do 5 trees correctly it could end up being great. What I'd like to see is
A tree mostly based around AAs with bonuses to things like AS, Crit and on-hits with some minor defensive skills based around vamp on hit, not lifesteal, that would be something like 'your first AA against a target champion heals you for x, y sec CD'.
An AP focused tree with bonuses to AP and CDR and some utility options and minor sustain options.
A tank tree with bonuses to resists and HP as well as minor utility and sustained damage options.
A utility tree with a focus on pure utility but also some amount of poke damage and minor durability.
An AD caster tree with bonuses to AD and CDR plus small amounts of utility.
Iridya3 votesThe important part must be that all the bonuses are SMALL
LankPants2 votesPart of the reason why Thunderlord's is the best mastery in the first place is because of how good Precision is. Precision is the top tier 5 mastery by a wide margin. It's tied to keystones because of it's position on the tree and the best keystone bellow it is Thunderlords.
AirKingNeo1 votesPrecision sucks because lethality sucks.
LankPants2 votesIt went from giving flat pen+pen per level to Lethality, which is flat pen+pen per level. It actually gives more armour pen at low levels now than it used to.
It was considered one of the best masteries before and still is one of the best masteries if not even better than it used to be.
AirKingNeo1 votesIt gives barely any armor pen at early levels the hell are you talking about.
8.5 lethality is 3.4 + 1.4 is 4.8 at VS level 3. 4.8 is nothing.
KoggyStyle1 votesadd 24 from rune page.....
AirKingNeo1 votesNo one runs 24 lethality runes.
KoggyStyle1 votesim nobody.
MadManApocalypse1 votes[{quoted}](name=Snaggle Tooth,realm=NA,application-id=3ErqAdtq,discussion-id=qVjX6XXE,comment-id=00010001000000000000000000000000,timestamp=2017-01-23T02:03:25.210+0000)
im nobody.
Well... atleast you know?
LankPants2 votesIt used to give 3+0.3 per level, and at that it was considered one of the best masteries in the game.
KoggyStyle1 voteslol......
Penns10 votesAdcs feel too vulnerable because even tanks and "divers" with 4k hp that take no damage from them can easily kill them. Cotc, Warlords, Fervor and maybe even Windspeakers/Stormraiders on a few champs are better than thunderlords imo.
Jaygo412 votesAdcs feel too vulnerable because even tanks and "divers" with 4k hp that take no damage from them can easily kill them. Cotc, Warlords, Fervor and maybe even Windspeakers/Stormraiders on a few champs are better than thunderlords imo.
They're just NOT tho.
Fervor takes awhile to ramp up.
Courage is abused by its abusers, not itself. While the number needs tuning, the execution is fine. Tanks need to do less dmg and this will be ok
Windspeakers just allows Janna to be Janna more, but that's it.
Stormraiders is taken on like Ryze, Jayce, and I think that's it.
Thunderlords is the reason AP supports are way too strong. Thunderlords is the reason Rengar kills Ashe in one hit. Thunderlords adds burst to a game where burst is already pretty high. It's the reason people have been complaining about Lee for so long. If you're not an AD carry, Yasuo, Tryndamere, or some kind of tank, Thunderlords is the default damage Keystone.
Only a couple times when PD mallet Yasuo was strong have i ever complained about fervor. Look on any team and there's usually 2-3 Thunderlords on it. Like why? Why is this suddenly the default mastery for anyone that does damage quickly?
Penns1 votesThunderlords is more "reliable", you cant just use Fervor or Warlords on anything, but a bit more damage after 3 attacks works on just about everyone. The others are still better on the champs theyre good at.
YumaS2Astral2 votesProblem with Thunderlords is that it is the only "generic" keystone. This is because it is very easy to proc (you literally just have to auto or cast spells 3 times) and its effects are useful for everyone. So if your champion doesn't have better synergy with another keystone, you go Thunderlords.
The only other keystone which was like this was Strength of the Ages, before it was removed. Everyone benefits from being tankier. Everyone benefits from the 300 HP.
PhDs Nuts7 votesThunderlord Syndra is sooo stupid. Miss everything, ult still does 1400 damage.
KoggyStyle1 votesya its a good bronzie pick :P
MLDzXnRRR5 votesStromraiders Riven or Ryze = fun times for the enemy laner. Getting damage for free, then running. I'm pretty sure that this mastery was made for assasins like Talon to be able to get out, not for lane bullies to damage you for free.
ZephyrDrake6 votesStromraiders Riven or Ryze = fun times for the enemy laner. Getting damage for free, then running. I'm pretty sure that this mastery was made for assasins like Talon to be able to get out, not for lane bullies to damage you for free.
and yet most assassins do not care about it since they can escape just as easily without it so why bother? the mastery was made for anyone who can burst down their opponents not just assassins
MLDzXnRRR2 votesand yet most assassins do not care about it since they can escape just as easily without it so why bother? the mastery was made for anyone who can burst down their opponents not just assassins
Is this a good and healthy game design? We have already enough hit and run type champions and strategies.
ZephyrDrake2 votesIs this a good and healthy game design? We have already enough hit and run type champions and strategies.
no idea and frankly i really don't care. It's not a mastery that is picked all that often outside of very few champions who love it. There are way too many masteries, items and champions that i would question whether they are good and healthy design over stormraider's at any given time
Penns1 votesIts just not good enough for escaping as assassin imo. Fizz for example often cant escape a fight because his E has like 6+s cooldown, but stormraiders doesnt help because he just gets stunned and instadies lol.
KoggyStyle1 voteswouldent Cotc work on his ult?
Edit: Also Q in E out
KoggyStyle1 votesthe real question is... why ami taking thunderlords on hybrid gnar? that surge would literally net me every kill i almost get let go so i can farm up more.....XD
LankPants4 votesAnother reason why damage is crept so hard is that 80% of people put 12 or more points into Ferocity. Only 30% of people actually go all the way down the Ferocity tree, half of all players spec the Ferocity tree just to get the absurd tier 4 masteries, basically the damage in the game is up 5% just because of these fucking masteries.
5% increased damage at tier 4 of a tree is just way out of line. The only other mastery that's on par with this sort of increase is Insight, but you have to slug through the shit that is the first 3 tiers of the Resolve tree to get down to that mastery. If the first 3 tiers of Resolve were good I'd probably lump Insight in with the tier 4 Ferocity masteries, but they're hot garbage outside of Runic Armour which is only situationally good so it's in no way on par.
Riot fucked up when they decided it was appropriate to have a straight 5% damage increase available to everyone. A mastery of that power belongs in tier 5 at least so you're forced into a keystone from that tree if you want it, if not as a keystone in and of itself.
Dengeden1 votes**straight **5% damage increase
Only it's not...
It's either after killing 3-4 different enemy champions. After doing damage for 5s (which according to the damage creep circlejerk, doesn't happen). Or in exchange for taking extra damage.
LankPants2 votesDouble Edged Sword is basically a straight 5% increase for squishy champs. The 2.5% extra damage taken is unimportant with how fast squishies explode currently, it's the difference between being overkilled for 200 instantly or being overkilled for 260 instantly.
Battle Trance is abusable because of how the game defines 'in combat'. While it does require combat with a champion it's quite easy to maintain this due to a surprisingly long dropoff time. From what I can find it has a 2-3 second drop off time (it's hard to tell precisely, I'd like to test this when I have access to sandbox mode) but this means you can keep the mastery active with consistent poke or even by being poked. Additionally tanks with hard CC can stack up the mastery fairly efficiently since you spend time under CC and the mastery stacks up in this time. That's not to say it always hits 5%, but 3% is equal to what the old offence tree gave for 21 points, a full investment.
Bounty Hunter is situational, but in it's situation it's utterly retarded. I'm fairly sure this mastery is a large contributor to Rengar being so stupid right now for example.
If you're trying to argue that these masteries aren't broken you just have to look at what people spec. Looking at T4 and T6 of an average game you expect to see
What does that tell us? It says that a lot of people spec to T4 in Ferocity. They don't want a keystone but it's clearly the best place to dump the rest of their points. TLD is also absurd, it has around 3x the pickrate of CotC, the second most popular pickup. It's reasonable to assume that most of the people specing into Cunning do so mostly for TLD, since more people specing this tree to T4 go on to grab TLD than not, this isn't true for any other mastery, even CotC.
These masteries are pretty much the strongest masteries available at 12 points in the game. Insight might compete but Insight is literally a sink of 12 points just for Insight and it's not worth that.
Dengeden1 votesA lot of people buy boots too, a lot of mages buy Morello, a lot of ADCs go BT, using your logic they're all as OP as TLD. After all, all we need to determine how OP/absurd/broken something is, is pickrate.
Play ADC. Play any lane. After you've played it once, tell me you "get blown up" every time you trade.
If you use poke to activate Battle Trance, you've already used your main spell, which will not be boosted by Battle Trance.
The old offense tree had all forms of damage increase (perhaps less in some departments but it also had a %increase in AD/AP as well as more AS) that the current one offered (aside from TLD and DFT). However, you still had 9 mastery points left after that which you put into defense. According to people who think damage creep is a thing, that's a form of damage creep too.
It is of course true, that people opt into damage because damage is the only way to get anything done here. The objective is to destroy the nexus and all its defendants. It isn't "Oh look how fair and full of counterplay I am, I deal no damage, take no damage." The highest winrate builds/comps/champions will always need some reliable way to kill the enemy team and their structures. Some might argue that it isn't fair that champions should deal damage at all stages of the game, to which I say... eh. TLD and FoB are hard to stack, getting off poke damage from GfG or FrB is a lot harder than you might think.
LankPants1 votesPlay ADC. Play any lane. After you've played it once, tell me you "get blown up" every time you trade.
http://matchhistory.oce.leagueoflegends.com/en/#match-details/OC1/161359485/501986
I played my last solo ranked game on Ashe. I took over the game because I adapted the way I played rather than blindly building the standard meta build of pure damage. If you're not mechanically shit and you're willing to adapt to the game ie. build a defensive item against dive you can still carry hard as an ADC.
The idea that ADCs are weak is complete and utter bullshit.
Dengeden1 votesLol. Where did I say that? I said that ADCs don't get blown up in trades.
LankPants1 votesMy bad, I think ADCs are fine but that doesn't mean there's no damage creep.
There is a damage creep in the game caused by masteries, it's not that offensive masteries are too strong, rather that there's too many. That's not to say that there aren't masteries that aren't to strong, T4 Ferocity is too strong, T3 Cunning is too strong, Insight is too strong however you can't nerf Insight with no other changes because if you do the whole Resolve tree is pretty much garbage.
The problem is that you can optimally spec full offence. This wasn't a thing in season 4, there were like 3 champions who could run 30/0/0 viably and it wasn't that good. Right now you can construct a literal full damage page. This used to be impossible, everyone got either a little bit of durability or a little bit of utility from masteries. That's before mentioning how absurd FoB and TLD are in terms of damage output. FoB can give 64 AD, that's a BF Sword and a Pickaxe, that's so much more than everything in the old offence tree combined.
Dengeden1 votes"Insight is too strong"?
It was part of the old mastery system as well.
Oh? So now, optimally spec'ing full offense is a bad thing? Right. So I have your confirmation here and now that Tank Yasuo wasn't an instance of damage creep?
See? That's my problem with the concept.
FoB is trash. Furthermore, it takes time to stack up. Furthermore, AD items used to give more AD. TLD is every 30s and also needs to stack up. That's "absurd"?
LankPants1 votes"Insight is too strong"?
It was part of the old mastery system as well.
It was overpowered then as well? (Summoner's) Insight has pretty much always been overpowered.
Oh? So now, optimally spec'ing full offense is a bad thing? Right. So I have your confirmation here and now that Tank Yasuo wasn't an instance of damage creep?
Tank Yasou speced full offence. The most common masteries were 18/12/0.
FoB is trash. Furthermore, it takes time to stack up. Furthermore, AD items used to give more AD. TLD is every 30s and also needs to stack up. That's "absurd"?
I don't think FoB is the thing here that's trash buddy.
Dengeden1 votesIt was overpowered then as well? (Summoner's) Insight has pretty much always been overpowered.
Ok? Not an instance of S6 damage creep though.
Tank Yasou speced full offence. The most common masteries were 18/12/0.
Oh mb. Still, he built tank items.
I don't think FoB is the thing here that's trash buddy.
It's trash on ADCs and impossible to stack on bruisers (who don't like the flat AD much anyway, unless they're Yi)
LankPants1 votesOk? Not an instance of S6 damage creep though.
No, it's just an example of the only keystone on par with the damage crept keystones. The 12 spec winds up being weak anyway though because the Resolve tree is quite poor.
It's trash on ADCs and impossible to stack on bruisers (who don't like the flat AD much anyway, unless they're Yi)
It's still the top Keystone on AA based bruisers and also pretty good on certain ADCs. Almost 90% of Irelia's use FoB in Diamond, over 90% of Yi's, 2/3rds of Shyvana's, 2/3rds of Jax's and 2/3rds of Olaf's. It's still very good on AA centric bruisers and it's not that hard to stack since it gives 2 stacks per AA. If an Irelia AA/Qresets/AAs you she gains 6 stacks. If A Yi alphas in with a double strike up he instantly gains 4 stacks. Stacks also last 6 seconds, so they don't tend to fall off in fights that often.
It's also good on caster ADCs who have decent auto attack resets and on-hit spells. It's still the top pick for Lucian, Ezreal and Kalista.
Dengeden1 votesThe on-hit damage was better though. There's a reason you don't see ADCs stack BF swords. Flat AD only goes so far. The bruisers still need to get in range and in a 1v1 scenario, there is no way you can honestly think that bruisers are better than before.
I'm still waiting for you to admit that tank Yas wasn't an example of damage creep.
The Resolve tree does what's necessary. Naturally, the tank stats will (and always have) be(en) worse because they require no input on the person using them.
LankPants1 votesThe on-hit damage was better though.
In most cases I agree, there's some exceptions like the aforementioned Lucian who really loves FoB right now. It's still an example of absurd damage creep. The entire offence tree in season 4 gave less damage than FoB. The Ferocity tree alone gives multiple times the damage of the old offence tree.
I'm still waiting for you to admit that tank Yas wasn't an example of damage creep.
You're not getting it, it was. If you went 30/0/0 in season 4 you got
When tank Yasou was a thing he got from Ferocity and Cunning
While a 30/0/0 spec gave more offensive bonuses they were smaller on average. The simple fact is that it's mostly FoB that put tank Yasuo over the edge, nothing in Season 4 compared to it and the build simply would have lacked damage then.
The Resolve tree does what's necessary. Naturally, the tank stats will (and always have) be(en) worse because they require no input on the person using them.
The Resolve tree is utter garbage. Unless you have a shield or a heal the first 3 tiers actually have no good choices at all. The tier 5 is also very bad. Once CotC gets nerfed next patch I wouldn't be surprised to see tanks passing over resolve entirely and just taking Thunderlord's.
Also saying tanks don't take input from the player is pretty dumb. If that was true it would be literally impossible to climb on tanks. If you played tanks you'd just inherently balance out to a 50/50 winrate regardless of what you did.
LankPants1 votesReposting here because long chains annoy me and Riot still limits comment chain lengths for some reason.
I'm sure Lucian loves FoB as much as he loves his pathetic winrate.
I'm sure Amumu loves CotC as much as his even more pathetic winrate. Shitty argument is shitty for either case.
Fact is, FoB takes time to stack up, it's not damage creep if fights last just as long. In S4, bruisers would have built one more offensive item and bam. Same damage. Only less counterplay because it'd be via items and not keystones.
If you don't get 4+ AAs in a fight as Irelia/Yi in a fight you probably got crushed to a pulp anyway. The simple fact is that there was nothing in the old season 4 tree that could remotely compare to 64 AD, the whole tree failed to compare to 64 AD. I don't know why you're acting like this isn't more damage, it's hundreds more damage per second for a character like Yi who gets considerable AS and has strong AD ratios. He stacks it in seconds. Acting like it's not a huge boost to his damage over S4 trees is flat out denialism.
Bruisers also built the exact same way in season 4. I don't know why you're acting like they didn't. Irelia and Jax went Triforce into tank, Shyvana went BotRK into tank, Vi and Hec went Elder Lizard to tank. Nothing changed, if anything builds are more offensive now, Irelia for example often builds Gauge, a hybrid offence/defence item.
If the Resolve tree is garbage, defensive runes are garbage. Pots are garbage. Only they're not.
Here's the difference between defensive runes/pots and the Resolve tree, defensive runes and pots give you defensive stats. Look at the masteries people actually skill, Tough Skin, Insight, Swiftness, Recovery, Runic Armour, none of these masteries give actual defensive stats, they all give utility, either defensive or pure.
The only common masteries that give defensive stats are Vet Scars, the garbage mastery you take if your champ can't use Runic Armour, the mastery so bad that there's a fucking meme about how shitty it is and CotC.
The Resolve tree in its current state is a utility tree, not a tank tree.
Also if you want to understand why Resolve is garbage go down it and tell me how often you're taking the least bad option out of a pool of bad options. You do this at T1, 2, 5 and for some champs 3. There's a huge sum of simply terrible masteries in Resolve where the vast majority of Ferocity and Cunning masteries are quite strong.
Tank stats, defensive stats require no input. They evidently don't.
What's the point of this statement? Offensive stats also require no input. 1 AD increases my raw damage by 1, I don't think about it, I play the same with 1 extra AD as without. If I have large differences in my AD I change my playstyle to compensate but the same is true of tank stats too.
Dengeden1 votesI'm sure Amumu loves CotC as much as his even more pathetic winrate. Shitty argument is shitty for either case.
Amumu's winrate is average. Lucian's is below that. That's not the same argument at all. Fact is, Fervor sucks and you're grasping at straws to prove it's somehow still overloading the game with damage.
If you don't get 4+ AAs in a fight as Irelia/Yi in a fight you probably got crushed to a pulp anyway.
Or you tanked them a little.
The simple fact is that there was nothing in the old season 4 tree that could remotely compare to 64 AD, the whole tree failed to compare to 64 AD. I don't know why you're acting like this isn't more damage, it's hundreds more damage per second for a character like Yi who gets considerable AS and has strong AD ratios. He stacks it in seconds. Acting like it's not a huge boost to his damage over S4 trees is flat out denialism.
It's a denial of the notion that fighters can walk into the enemy team and get off free AAs. This is very rare and on the rare occasion it did happen, it didn't matter what season you were in. As comparison of then vs now gameplay footage, which you damage creep people are so averse to using (I wonder why) will prove.
It's a denial of the notion that flat AD is that good on fighters.
It's also an acknowledgement of the fact that AD and items have gotten nerfed repeatedly.
Bruisers also built the exact same way in season 4. I don't know why you're acting like they didn't. Irelia and Jax went Triforce into tank
They built BotRK too. Jax did anyway. Irelia could if she snowballed.
Shyvana went BotRK into tank, Vi and Hec went Elder Lizard to tank.
Hec maybe. Tri was appealing on him though. Vi always built Brutalizer.
Here's the difference between defensive runes/pots and the Resolve tree, defensive runes and pots give you defensive stats. Look at the masteries people actually skill, Tough Skin, Insight, Swiftness, Recovery, Runic Armour, none of these masteries give actual defensive stats, they all give utility, either defensive or pure.
Pots are a defensive stat but Recovery isn't. Right.
The only common masteries that give defensive stats are Vet Scars, the garbage mastery you take if your champ can't use Runic Armour, the mastery so bad that there's a fucking meme about how shitty it is and CotC.
Sejuani'd is a meme too and just as misleading.
Vet Scars give you flat health. That's useful early game. So useful in fact that champions who take it have higher winrates than if they took Runic Armor. So useful that people take flat health seals.
The Resolve tree in its current state is a utility tree, not a tank tree.
Also if you want to understand why Resolve is garbage go down it and tell me how often you're taking the least bad option out of a pool of bad options. You do this at T1, 2, 5 and for some champs 3. There's a huge sum of simply terrible masteries in Resolve where the vast majority of Ferocity and Cunning masteries are quite strong.
And I've explained why. Offense is a situational stat. Defense less so. Although I don't know what more you could want, it gives flat defenses and scaling defenses.
What's the point of this statement? Offensive stats also require no input. 1 AD increases my raw damage by 1, I don't think about it, I play the same with 1 extra AD as without. If I have large differences in my AD I change my playstyle to compensate but the same is true of tank stats too.
No, they require you to do damage, which has a list of requirements tacked on. You need to get in range, select the right target and/or hit skillshots. In order for your tank stats to do something, on the other hand, you need to be in range for it and that's it. Since towers, minions and mobs exist, this is indeed easier.
XinCrin3 votesI would disagree with thunder lords being the best keystone. I don't think there is a single best keystone.
If a champion has high damage and can easily proc thunderlords, you take thunderlords.
If your champion scales off of health and is quite tanky, you take CoC or grasp
And if you AA a lot and scale off of AD you take fervor or warlords
ADC 
Also, a lot of amplifiers in the masteries themselves make people do a lot of damage like the double edged sword, precision and merciless when running 12/18/0
Dengeden2 votesThe most avoidable keystone is the reason damage has crept so hard. Riiiiiight.
Here's what Thunderlord's does: it helps secure kills and win trades that you should win. You hit your entire combo and, with Thunderlord's, the chances of the enemy getting away by nature of having defensive stats are lower.
Thunderlord's on any bruiser that isn't Lee is straight garbage, I don't know why you'd bring that up.
KoggyStyle2 voteshybrid onhit gnar S4 before devourer / rageblade nerfs.... fun times farming bots on customs....