@Riot, Do you have any plans to improve keystone mastery(ies) for mages?

LankPants·2/18/2016, 11:03:25 AM·11 votes·1,673 views

Since the start of the season there's been repeated iteration on the masteries for AD champions, making sure that ADCs have a choice between Warlords and Fervour as well as the generalist Thunderlord's. This has not been true for mages.

Non-DOT mages do not have any real choice in keystones, the only keystone you can actually justify picking on most mages is Thunderlord's. The keystones that are meant to be alternatives are just terrible.

I think at this point it's safe to say that Stormrader's is a failed experiment, it's not really good on anyone outside of the possible abuse case on Tahm Kench. Deathfire is just too specialised to be a real alternative to Thunderlord's, it's good on a couple of people but for the majority it's god-awful. This leaves mages with a single option from keystones, which doesn't seem like what Riot's goal with the new masteries was.

Something needs to be done about this and the way I see it there's two main possibilities. Either a new keystone could be added if there's actually something redeemable about Stormraider's or more realistically Stormraider's could be scraped and replaced with something usable.

And for anyone who thinks Stormraider's is in someway good it's picked less than 1% of the time which is 4x less than the next lowest mastery, ignoring Warlord's since it's being reworked.

23 Comments

Sohleks2/18/2016, 1:15:57 PM2 votes

Mages need a better consistent damage option in the ferocity tree. DFT is dubious on all but the most persistent aoe/dot ap champs. Thunderlords should be geared for early game trading, with ferocity keystones geared for carrying.

Part of the problem tho is the design of most mages is to 100-0 their target in a flash.

A possible option is to move warlord's onto stormraider's spot and replace warlord's spot with something new. However I think giving up on stormraider for a mere damage keystone would be a letdown as a long term design choice. It is perhaps DFT that needs a touchup to not be so restricted to the ideal kit [without being overbearing on that kit]

Perhaps a way to go about this instead of additional direct damage... a keystone to buff oneself's AP with some mechanic. Like some kind of meditation theme'd major keystone. They get mentally ready to blast someone... In effect I guess that is just thunderlords... yet still useful for its duration of additional spellslinging?

63536895_DEL2/18/2016, 2:35:39 PM1 votes

Its the precision mastery thats limiting everyone to thunderlords. It gives both Armor and Magic pen where as the other tree only gives 7% of one or the other.

ExhibitD2/18/2016, 4:27:16 PM1 votes

I love running Stormraiders on Diana (Mid). I take it when i go Mid Diana because it offers me an escape that I don't have in my kit, the mastery does exactly what you would want most other masteries to do it helps cover a weakness in a kit.

Just because a Keystone isn't being picked doesn't mean that there aren't reasons to use it. Not everything has to be about damage, which is what every other Keystone is besides SoTA and WSB.

Earthlord Jazz2/18/2016, 4:45:51 PM1 votes

I agree. I hope we'll get more keystone masteries when the mage update comes midyear

Of course there are A LOT of things I'm hoping for this mage update, I probably won't get them all but I'm excited

The Yetii Rider2/18/2016, 10:21:17 PM1 votes

Riot isn't concerned with mages right now. They want assassins to be played because assassins control marksmen.

The strongest marksman in the game is Graves, the one who gets 30-120 armor and MR (making him unburstable). I wonder why?

Buffing mages will artificially increase their pick rate for one patch while everyone tries them out. That will artificially lower assassin play rates (mid can only be one or the other) which will inflate ADC win rates across the board, which will get everyone in an uproar.

It's not your meta, Mage players. Accept it the same way AP supports accepted being bad with no buffs for two seasons straight.

Deathchewy2/19/2016, 1:00:35 AM1 votes

What about swain using deathfire touch as his entire kit revovles around DoT damage?

Pink Chocolade 2/18/2016, 11:21:42 AM1 votes

Lol thunderlord on a mage, dude that is the worst spell for a mage and zero damage at all

Also according to PBE we gon get new masteries anyway

Nekusen2/22/2016, 6:39:52 PM1 votes

Correction, AD can choose between

Warlords Fervor DeathFireGrasp (as it has a huge AD scaling) Thunderlords