@Riot Let's talk keystones and masteries as a whole.

TLDR: This game has experienced nothing but trouble since the implementation of the new mastery system and keystones in pre-season 6. Leaving the season 4/5 mastery trees and the state of the game during their reign far superior in absolutely every way.

Given today's identity announcement of the first of 3 tanks being worked on (sejuani) as well as the existence of mastery nerfs on the PBE, I figured what better time to discuss the state of masteries as a whole. Given they'll have a sizeable impact on the decisions regarding items and champion updates in the mid season update.

Now before I tear them apart, admittedly I was really keen for keystones when they were announced. I thought they sounded really cool and saw real potential for them to be a truly amazing addition to league of legends. Something that would spice up my boring af farm lanes when I played anything other than jungle/support. I loved the sound of "grasp of the undying" the most as I played tanks.

I was never been a fan of the new mastery system as a whole. Initially I loved a few of the keystones as they made life a little easier but I really didn't like the way I was forced to allocate my points. Riot wanted there to be more options, less cookie cutter builds and from this, more variety to arise. But these new mastery trees did nothing but remove variety/flexibility and don't even come close to what the old mastery trees used to offer. In fact, there are less masteries and with them less variety from the get go. We currently have 45 masteries...... we used to have 57 masteries. But let's now remove the ones that are very uncommon, all of which are from the Resolve Tree: unyielding, siegemaster, fearless, legendary guardian. Undoubtedly there are those who use these masteries. But I for one have never used them or seen them for a long time. That's 16 masteries gone.

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But let's continue with this newfound variety we have here. Instead of a dedicated tank, utility and attack tree..... We have a dmg, dmg and "so weak it may as well not exist" tree. The keystones do not add the variety Riot intended, they do not offer a strategic choice and they have caused an obscene amout of balance issues since their implementation. The only keystone that actually affects the way you CAN (not do) play is stormraiders surge. Every other keystone is just a stat stick with an extremely specific niche/application method and usually has an optimal champ to use it on. . DPS marksman (eg not jhin, luc and graves) will always take either fervor or warlords (whichever is stronger at the time). . Anything with burst will almost always take thunderlords. With the odd princess taking stormraiders (talon/Asol) or deathfire (jhin) . Anyone who heals peoples takes windspeakers . Tanks or bruisers with hard CC take CoC. Anyone without takes grasp . And only those with no other option take bond of stone. If you don't take the most optimal keystone for your champion and go up against one who did, you'll likely get squashed. It’s as simple as that.

Now for mastery selection flexibility. It's atrocious. And I say this because it forces you to invest the max amount of points into a mastery. Maybe I only want 2 points in savagery and want to use 22 points in my first offensive tree. But no, you MUST invest all 5 points into that mastery set and no more (so you can’t do 5 savagery and 3 in wanderer). This leaves you with a strange number of mastery points where you either spend 1 point on a single cost mastery (the ones after savagery) or have 7 points in the resolve tree (basically a waste of a point). This isn't flexibility and options, this is having a rock solid instruction manual slammed down on your hands. Gone are the days where you shove all your mastery points into a single tree, gone are the days of 10/10/10. And gone are ALL OF THE USEFUL MASTERIES THAT MAKE KEYSTONES LOOK LIKE TRASH! Sure, all dmg champs shared one common tree, but there were less obvious choices in the def vs utility tree decision which added a sense of personal choice. And the way you got to that final mastery was based on your champion and how you wanted to play them.

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Now let's talk balance. The more pressing issue than the fact that champions have been nerfed purely because of their performance with a particular keystone is dmg creep. Now I acknowledge that Riot is in the process of testing nerfs but too little too late. The damage is done, games quality hindered and balance crushed. The issue is not that they increase damage. But the way they increase your damage. This being that they increase the overall dmg you deal by a percentage as opposed to the old masteries that increased your individual AD or AP by a percentage or flat amount (rarely both).

Only 5 of the original 57 masteries (less than a tenth) could increase damage to either AP and AD champions, 2 of which were conditional (they needed to be stacked 3 times for max effect). 11 of the 41 masteries (over 25%) effectively increase damage for any champion regardless of their kit/scaling. Including the keystone mastery of the past, 13% is the maximum additional damage a spell or auto attack could deal. Excluding keystones, magic/armor pen and %HP damage (from the bush AA enhancement) you gain 14% additional damage across the board. You only need to go down to the fourth layer of ferocity and cunning to achieve this. Meanwhile you HAD to invest 21 points (3 less) into a single tree to achieve this damage.

But that's enough about damage. How about defence? Well it doesn't take a genius to see that the old one is superior by an absurd margin. With the old defensive tree you gained more amour, MR, health regen and healing and despite losing out on tenacity by 5%, the 15% slow resistance more than makes up for it. There is absolutely NOTHING that the resolve tree does better than the defence tree

But what about utility vs cunning? Granted windspeakers blessing and the 45% CDR cap would've been welcome replacements/additions. The utility tree offered more mana, better potions, more gold income and a bonus experience mastery (which would help greatly given how quickly supports fall behind in levels).

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Final talking point, the keystones themselves. You wanted to achieve more interactivity, to create more situations than existed previously. But where is additional interactivity when these keystones don't do anything to alter your playstyle? And are merely add ons to regular occurrences. Warlords, fervor, deathfire, thunderlords, Windspeakers, stormraiders, graps, CoC, bond of stone. None of them involve anything that differs from the norm.

1. Whether you have warlords or not you will still hit people with auto attacks and spells.
2. Whether you have fervor or not you will still do the same as if you had warlords.
3. Deathfire? Cast spells as normal for a free DoT.
4. Probably the most versatile and least common keystone. While it allows for some sneaky plays in the end it is still another stat stick only used by those who utilise it to the highest degree.
5. You will still hit people as fast as possible whether you have thunderlords or not.
6. And you would also heal and shield people as often as possible with windspeakers.
7. Just like 4 of the 6 keystones already mentioned, you would be auto attacking regardless so how does grasp add interactivity?
8. CoC. A reward for having a hard CC spell?
9. Bond of Stone. Just a stat stick that doesn't involve you doing anything. This is the issue. These don't add anything special. All of them are stat sticks, some with cooldowns and others with conditions of application.

So what exactly do these new trees do better than the old ones? The old ones provide more versatility, are more balanced, cater to a wider array of champions as well as champion classes and as far as I'm aware, no champions were directly nerfed due to their performance with those masteries. If you want interactive ways to utilise stats. Give us new items with interesting conditions/mini-games. Give us new events and objectives on the map to interact with. Masteries thus far have proven themselves to be the wrong direction to achieve this goal.

So what am I playing at, what am I trying to achieve? Personally. I want keystones gone (for the time being). I want the absurd way I have to utilise my points gone. Y'know what both of the absences are equivalent to? The old mastery tree system and the state of the game during their existence, were and still are the best mastery tree system. Props to riot for having the balls to try something so disruptive. But this time I feel it just didn't work out and will never trump the old mastery system.

Just my 5 cents, thanks for reading be it the entire body or just the TLDR. But more than that. What's your opinion. Do you agree, disagree or have no idea? Tell me below and I'm really keen to read other people's opinions.