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Mastery Amalgamation

Stammer6·1/29/2016, 5:51:47 PM·29 votes·2,064 views
http://i.imgur.com/9VWrh16.png

Something I have becoming increasingly passionate about is the idea of removing the borders between the three mastery trees. If done right, I feel as though it could be entirely beneficial and easy to transition. Yes, it would probably take a patch or two to balance, but we are still early in the season and the masteries are still being changed each patch anyway so why not strike while the iron is still hot!

So what do I mean by amalgamation? I mean you don't need to necessarily go down one tree to reach later tiers of that tree. For example, if you put 5 points into Sorcery, you can then take the tier-2 of any other tree. If I wanted to take Explorer, I wouldn't be forced to take Recovery or Unyielding before it if I didn't want to. In this amalgamation, you can still keep the trees "Ferocity", "Cunning", and "Resolve" to keep them organized and give people an idea what they're picking, but you aren't being shoe-horned into taking something you didn't want to take. It would still have you put the points down in the same order, so it wouldn't let you pick like all the keystones or anything.

"Meaningful Choices" is a term Riot has been trying to get across for a while. With the current system, there are many situations where you aren't picking between two or more really good options. Sometimes you're picking the "least bad" option, for example, going down the Ferocity tree as a mage support, do you take the mastery that makes you take 1.5% more damage or the mastery that does nothing because you aren't last-hitting? Sometimes you aren't making a choice at all because there's exactly one good option for you, for example, going down Cunning as a support you would never take the one that extends buff duration, and you would never take the one that only amplifies damage if you're in a solo lane, so you're forced to take the one that makes your potions stronger.

But what about Tough Skin and Explorer? Both of those are pretty good options for a support. Too bad you have to put 6 points into Resolve just to get those options. That's 6 fewer points to put into the higher tiers of Ferocity. With this current mastery system, the only choice you're making is "Do I take the good shallow masteries but then not reach good deep masteries, or do I force myself to take shallow masteries that I don't want so I can reach the deeper masteries?" - and that's a pretty obvious choice, not a Meaningful Choice.

Now imagine you aren't restrained by the trees. Imagine if instead of picking the best ONE of TWO, you get to pick the best TWO of SEVEN! Imagine if now you're playing a squishy champion and can make the choice to either put both points into offense, both points into defense, or one point in each. You can pick Veteran's Scars to survive the early-game if you're up against a bad match-up without completely screwing over your later tiers. You can pick both Runic Affinity and Assassin if you're playing an assassin jungler, or both Bounty Hunter and Oppressor if you want to really amplify your damage! All coming with pros and cons because you're picking out of not 2, but 6~8 options!

Let's say you're playing a champion that really benefits from Warlord's Bloodlust, but the enemy team didn't pick a tank. Why can't you pick the anti-squishy Precision mastery with the keystone you want? Or if you've first-picked a bursty mage and then the enemy locked in tons of tanks. You still want Thunderlord's Decree, but now you want the percent-penetration of Piercing Thoughts. Sure, some of this might seem a little bit overpowered, but again, it's still early in the season and wouldn't take long to tweak. Ultimately, this could also fix some of the extreme snowballing we're seeing this season due to how difficult it is to deal with counters right now. I also feel this could fix the problem of too many people taking certain masteries and leaving others out. For example, you might be more likely to take the Strength of Ages keystone if you didn't have to be a tank to get it.

In conclusion, I strongly feel it would be an overall benefit to the game if the masteries didn't force you down a specific tree to get deeper. It would mean each choice would be more meaningful, it would likely diversify builds a little more (yes, min-maxing will always exist, but more options for more situations is going to break it down a bit better), and it wouldn't force you into taking things you don't want to take.

"What about new players?" They wouldn't be affected. As long as you still need to put 18 points down before you can put extra points into the shallower tiers, they will still acquire their keystone by level 18. And as long as the maximum points per tier stay the same, they also won't accidentally put too many points into shallower tiers.

"Wouldn't this be hard to balance?" Certain champions would likely need adjustments. For example, I'd imagine fighters like Jax and tanks like Garen could be extremely powerful if they could concentrate their points. But we're still in preseason and Riot is still putting a lot of effort into fixing their current system. I feel that in the short term (like for 1-2 patches) it would be crazy, but in the long term it would actually be easier to keep balanced!

"Riot is already adding new masteries for more choices" More choices are always great. Like the upcoming option for mage supports in the Ferocity tree. But even then it's still only one good option. Why take the best 1 of 1 when you can take the best 2 of 9? Wouldn't that be overall better?

9 Comments

Voidzilla1/29/2016, 11:00:40 PM5 votes

I like this idea. It would actually grant more unique and customized mastery-choices than the current system really allows. Although I'm a little hesitant on the burden of the sheer amount of choices had, I think people would adjust fairly well given the time.

EzraTwitch1/29/2016, 7:16:03 PM3 votes

I Really like this idea. Personally as someone who loves theory craft and tweaking, the New Masterys seem awfully restrictive.

IsmokeOregano1/29/2016, 9:07:38 PM3 votes

before reading the post (or knowing what amalgamation was) i spend WAY too much time looking at that picture like "How did this happen? I want to do this too.."

[zombie-brand-facepalm]

Ormylar1/30/2016, 12:20:54 AM2 votes

I really like this idea. Gives more diversity and gives you more options to how to build your masteries for specific champions.

Pointy Rock1/30/2016, 2:09:16 AM2 votes

They are in separate trees for a reason, they are totally balanced based around that fact. In order to do this the entire mastery system would need to be overhauled.

Nulli0N1/30/2016, 6:44:28 PM1 votes

I could see something like this where you're allowed to take adjacent masteries, but free reign seems a little strong. By this, I mean that a player who invests a ton of their points into the first column (attack) wouldn't be allowed to put points into the last column (defense). However, they would be allowed to invest into the middle (utility? cunning.) column without needing to dump points into it too.

I feel like the problem here lies in how to fairly distribute the points as a player moves up (or down? up in power.) the skill tree. There would need to be a hard cap on how many points can be distributed where, or how many related (adjacent) skill have been taken, which suggests that a more web based mastery progression would be the best solution all-around. Elise

Overall, the current mastery system feels a little off-balance; the fact that by taking one mastery, you're restricted from another is a little bothersome. It might be better from a balance perspective, but then one could simply make early masteries stronger and the benefit of splitting mastery trees or branches or wtvr would be evened out.

Jungle Lux God1/30/2016, 7:59:57 PM1 votes

While I do think that this is a cool idea, I feel like this really shouldn't be implemented.

While having a lot of choice is good, but having too much choice can be extremely overwhelming. While some creative players might be really excited for this kind of choice, the less creative players would not be as happy because the system is no longer as straightforward as it was before. Instead of having to choose the best 1 of 3 twice, you have to choose the best 2 of 9, and the best 2 of 9 might be a harder choice than before.

On the other hand, once players have really adapted there's really no choice in which mastery to use. You will choose the 2 best masteries from each tier instead of the 1 best mastery from the tier in the tree you want to go into, even if your choice is normally suboptimal. This inhibits choice because there's no reason to pick the not-best over the best because the best is always available for the tier.