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Champions who prefer deathfire to thunderlord's

Nebuul·Feb 21, 2016·2 votes·8,948 views

Which champions do you think would benefit more from deathfire touch than other keystones? In my mind, this mostly means champions that can utilize constant deathfire damage to slowly but surely push opponents out-of-lane to gain xp and gold advantage, and it also means champions that have an easier time securing kills with deathfire.

My list is as follows:

Basically, these champions have a laning pattern that either doesn't mesh well with thunderlord's, meaning they can't frequently-enough land 3 his in succession to earn a proc, or they are so good at applying deathfire that they can far-exceed the damage done by thunderlord's decree over any given time period. Deathfire obviously isn't as bursty, so an assassin champion like Kassadin is better with thunderlord's late game. However, he gets a tremendous advantage during laning by rapidly reapplying deathfire with his Q, so he will be much stronger by the time he's running around deleting people.

What are your thoughts?

27 Comments

JbelsFeb 21, 20162 votes

I decided to do some math for the two masteries.

At level 18, Deathfire Touch with 300 AP and NO bonus AD does 83 magic damage (25% AP + 8 base damage) over 4 seconds for single target abilities, 41.5 damage over 2 seconds for AOE abilities, and roughly 10 magic damage every 1 second for DOT abilities. But it can be reapplied whenever you want.

At level 18, and 300 AP Thunderlord's Decree does 210 damage (10% AP of 300 = 30, + 180 base damage), but you can only reapply it ever 15 seconds.

So lets say that in a 30 second skirmish, Champion A had DFT while champion B has TLD. Champion A has a theoretical Single Target ability with a 4 second cooldown and champion B has 3 abilities that can proc TLD. If Champion A throws his Single target ability once every 4 seconds for a full 30 seconds (or 32 since 4 can actually divide into 32), then he'll have procced DFT about 8 times. 8 x 83 damage = 664 magic damage over 30 (almost) seconds. Now lets look at TLD, which has a 15 second cooldown at level 18

Champion B can get out Two TLD procs in this fight, which is a total 210 + 210 = 420 (LOL) damage.

So! When you look at the math, DFT wins the long game, but TLD hurts way more instantly.

RebonackFeb 21, 20161 votes

{quoted} Champion B can get out Two TLD procs in this fight, which is a total 210 + 210 = 420 (LOL) damage.

So! When you look at the math, DFT wins the long game, but TLD hurts way more instantly.

Three times, so 630, which is slightly less than deathfire but with far less commitment required.

Once at time zero, once at time 15, and once at time 30.

's why Thunderlord's is almost always better. The damage is comparable, but you can chunk it out in bursts rather than being forced to sit on someone's face the whole time. If Riot wanted these two masteries to be balanced, then the best thing to do would be to make Thunderlord's single target while making Deathfire deal full damage on AoE. That would give the two of them very clear ideal use cases.

JbelsFeb 21, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Three times, so 630, which is slightly less than deathfire but with far less commitment required.

Once at time zero, once at time 15, and once at time 30.

's why Thunderlord's is almost always better. The damage is comparable, but you can chunk it out in bursts rather than being forced to sit on someone's face the whole time. If Riot wanted these two masteries to be balanced, then the best thing to do would be to make Thunderlord's single target while making Deathfire deal full damage on AoE. That would give the two of them very clear ideal use cases.

Oh wow, can't believe I missed that. I don't know what to say then. I guess TLD is just objectively better

RebonackFeb 21, 20162 votes

{quoted}

Oh wow, can't believe I missed that. I don't know what to say then. I guess TLD is just objectively better

No problem, it's a pretty common mistake to make when calculating the effectiveness of burst abilities vs damage over time effects. The burst effect always gets an extra proc at time zero. 's why, all things being equal, a damage over time effect needs to be about 50% more powerful than a burst effect to get the same damage over the same time frame.

lilpokflufFeb 21, 20161 votes

I like it on xerath, I get what youre saying on kassidin but I think I would rather they be scared of me at 6 when they see how much my 3 hit combo does lol

thewire666Feb 21, 20161 votes

Thunderlord>deathfire. I would only use it with Cassio,Singed,Malzahar and maybe Ziggs.

The Queen ViperFeb 21, 20161 votes

Actually Cass likes DFT better.

Also deals more dmg early than Thunderlord.

GlaedrFeb 21, 20161 votes

Many of the champions listed have very easy combos to proc thunderlord. Examples being Cho just having to auto and W, ali combo + auto, Karthus just walking with E, Urgot E and Q, any standard Veigar combo, and so on. I would only consider Deathfire on a champion that has consistent DoT like Swain, Malz, and Brand, and then there's better choices for other champions.

SkelenthFeb 21, 20162 votes

Fun Fact: Cho'Gath's E-Spikes proc Deathfire Touch

NebuulFeb 21, 20161 votes

Just because someone can easily proc thunderlord's does not mean they are better off with it. You have to look at the whole picture. Take Alistar for example. As a support, I agree that Alistar should either take thunderlord's or bond of stone. If you take him top lane, though, you can keep deathfire burning on your opponent constantly through intelligent use of your passive and completely zone them from farm. Deathfire does far, far more damage than thunderlord's once you consider the cooldown period.

That is the strength of dft. It is like a poison that leeches life constantly. Use it to drain your opponent constantly and weaken their position.

mogonkFeb 21, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Just because someone can easily proc thunderlord's does not mean they are better off with it. You have to look at the whole picture. Take Alistar for example. As a support, I agree that Alistar should either take thunderlord's or bond of stone. If you take him top lane, though, you can keep deathfire burning on your opponent constantly through intelligent use of your passive and completely zone them from farm. Deathfire does far, far more damage than thunderlord's once you consider the cooldown period.

That is the strength of dft. It is like a poison that leeches life constantly. Use it to drain your opponent constantly and weaken their position.

Grasp is just so much better than either of those on top lane Alistar that the comparison is kind of irrelevant.

JbelsFeb 21, 20161 votes

{quoted}

Just because someone can easily proc thunderlord's does not mean they are better off with it. You have to look at the whole picture. Take Alistar for example. As a support, I agree that Alistar should either take thunderlord's or bond of stone. If you take him top lane, though, you can keep deathfire burning on your opponent constantly through intelligent use of your passive and completely zone them from farm. Deathfire does far, far more damage than thunderlord's once you consider the cooldown period.

That is the strength of dft. It is like a poison that leeches life constantly. Use it to drain your opponent constantly and weaken their position.

Alistar takes Windspeaker's blessing almost exclusively

Titanium70Feb 21, 20161 votes

I'd change: DrMundo : Grasp of the Undying Jhin : Warlords Bloodlust Veigar : Stormraider Surge

NebuulFeb 21, 20162 votes

Remember that Mundo's cleavers proc a full deathfire. If your aim is good, it is ridiculous harass, especially since you get 50% bonus ad damage.
Warlord's is also a good choice in some cases on Jhin. Deathfire is better, though, of you can poke with your ranged abilities regularly and avoid taking too much damage
I like the added 2 seconds of dft damage I can land on my opponent when harassing with Q farm second hits, but I can see the benefit of ruining away after landing a W or R, too.

FooDangFeb 21, 20161 votes

When does Mundo build bonus attack damage?

NebuulFeb 21, 20161 votes

Mostly just his masochism, which adds 100-200 ad at max rank

FooDangFeb 21, 20161 votes

Ok, forgot about that. Your reasoning makes more sense now.

Titanium70Feb 21, 20161 votes

We can talk about Veigar and Jhin (Veigar Storm because I want the 45% and TLD is bad), but Mundo and DFT is garbage. DFT has nearly no Base-DMG, you need some pretty high offensive stats to use this mastery. Mundo only gets some AD when using E which he does when fighting not for poking. And when fighting, Mundo gains so much more power from Grasp. Additionally Mundo can use his Qs to trigger the Undying passive before going in and proc Undying twice in one trade.

FooDangFeb 21, 20161 votes

Why is Alistar on here? His headbutt is on a 17 second CD. And to add on Illaoi you proc the full dmg on Death fire if you W on the spirit. I'd still run Grasp of the undying for her imo.

NebuulFeb 21, 20161 votes

Alistar's passive procs it, so you can even apply dft with your E.

FooDangFeb 21, 20161 votes

Yea, but only partial since it's AOE.

NebuulFeb 21, 20161 votes

Every tick of passive damage will give 2 sec of dft damage, so 1 spell cast will proc the full 4 sec of dft if they stay near you.

Billy VoHagenFeb 21, 20161 votes

Alistar? Cho'gath? Mundo? Illaoi? Jhin? Kassadin? Sion? Urgot? Yorick?

How the fuck do you build these champions?

NebuulFeb 21, 20161 votes

Look at those champions' laning patterns, think how they do damage, then the answer should be pretty obvious.

Billy VoHagenFeb 22, 20161 votes

Half of those should use strength of ages or grasp of the undying. Jhin should use Warlord's, Kassadin would do better with Thunderlords, Urgot probably Thunderlords also.

Duke AnaxFeb 22, 20162 votes

AP Alistar is a thing and devastating, because with his Heal it stil makes him really tanky. he can constantly apply Deathfire to everyone.

Deathfire Urgot is nuts, he builds straight AD and has a AoE DoT, which suddenly goes from a 60% AD ratio to a 150% AD ratio. He also often has the problem that he runs out of range when the enemy is low, deathfire will handle that.

Kuronok2Feb 22, 20161 votes

Sion Grasp.

Illaoi Grasp, she can proc it on the spirit, so no reason to pic something else.

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