Minor Mastery Tweak Tips

Havardy W ·Nov 10, 2014·5 votes·1,148 views

Smurf account here screwing around in low ELOs and I'm seeing a lot of inefficiencies which would help a lot mastery wise.

Offensive Masteries **Dangerous Game: Champion kills and assists restore 5% of your missing health and mana. ** -TAKE IT. Especially in low ELOs were people have no idea who will win trades or who will kill who first. It also prevents killing them at the cost of your life if you can get a kill off them first. -Also in bot lane, "OMG FU support KS!" well he may have just saved your life there if they take the kill healing you enough to survive plus the assist gold. Dont cry about who gets kills vs assist. Just accept that your team won a duel

Frenzy: Critical strikes increase your attack speed by 5% for 3 seconds, stacking up to 3 times. -If you're a caster (both AD and AP), DONT take it. Your spells will not crit (except for a few like GP). Even if your champ does crit adding 5-15% attack speed will do crap all if you barely auto attack. -If you're auto attack reliant then you can take this

Butcher & Feast: Basic attacks and single target abilities do 2 bonus damage to minions and monsters & Each time you kill a unit, you regain 3 health and 1 mana -Not worth much. 2 damage means so little when trying to last hit and doesnt help vs champions or buildings -Regain 3/1 is so minor you wont even get the value of 1 potion for awhile especially if you struggle with last hitting

Defensive Masteries **Enchanted Armor: Increases your bonus armor and magic resistance by 2.5 / 5%. ** -Dont take this unless you're a bruiser/tank class or have a champion that increases resistances with abilities -Key here is BONUS, so it does nothing w your base stats. I see this a lot on assassin/carries who dont even pick up any defensive items so they get nothing out of this

**Reinforced Armor & Evasive: Reduces the damage taken from critical strikes by 10% & Reduces the damage taken from area of effect magic damage by 4%. ** -Change these up based on the comp you're facing. Don't be lazy and just have a standard mastery page for each champ or role and never change it up -Damge reduction on these are huge

**Opression: Reduces damage taken from enemies with impaired movement or reduced attack speed by 3%. ** -Can be taken for champs who go 21/9/0 over juggernaut to win in trades where 3% less damage is more EHP than 3% more life, especially if you arent stacking HP items. Should be highly considered for non tank classes if you can slow helping win trades in lane Prime examples -Ashe: can always slow. Her arrows now reduce enemy damage by 3% = huge benefit -Syndra: W slows, E stuns -Lissandra: entire kit -Lux/Morgana: binds & slows

Utility Scout: Increases the cast range of trinkets by 15% -Warding totem has a 600 cast range +15% = 690 range. Champs who can ward jump can leap further with this to almost max distance. -Lee Sin Safeguard 700 range -Katarina Shunpo 700 range -Jax Leap Strike 700 range

9 Comments

ValyrianBladeNov 10, 20141 votes

I think your reasons are good but I disagree with some of them:

Dangerous game: I almost never take this. At higher levels you know whether you'll win the duel or not and once you win you'll know to retreat safely. At lower levels, if you're at all cautious, you're not going to fight to the death in a duel you think is 50-50. I rarely end a duel at below 5% health. It's 5% of missing, 5% is small to begin with and does less the more health I have. I'd just much rather take something to help me win the fight rather than something to help me after I've already won.

Frenzy I agree, only if you're an auto attacker who builds crit.

Butcher and feast: really disagree here. Why take AD marks over attack speed if it doesn't make a difference? Also, if you hit 5/6 and 5/7 per wave, that's 10 per minute or 1 per 6 sec. 3 health per 6 = 5 health per 10, abs 1.67 mana per 10. It's not amazing but nothing to sneeze at. It makes a difference early game, and I sometimes even take them on junglers.

I agree on the rest although I rarely take either the 10% crit reduction or reduced aoe damage. The armour and mr masteries are both better at rank 1 than higher ranks and I find there are more worthwhile places to put my points. I'd only take these against specific team comps that really build crit or have aoe. It's a good point though to change it up based on the enemy team, I hadn't thought of that so thanks!

ForFoxSakesNov 10, 20142 votes

I think your reasons are good but I disagree with some of them:

Dangerous game: I almost never take this. At higher levels you know whether you'll win the duel or not and once you win you'll know to retreat safely. At lower levels, if you're at all cautious, you're not going to fight to the death in a duel you think is 50-50. I rarely end a duel at below 5% health. It's 5% of missing, 5% is small to begin with and does less the more health I have. I'd just much rather take something to help me win the fight rather than something to help me after I've already won.

The 5% scales thoughout the game and isnt just for 1v1 duels where you know you'll win. Tag an assist mid teamfight and that's HP/mana back which may be enough to keep you in the fight or an additional spell or 2 to win the fight. It stacks as well - straight up win and teamfight and 5%x5 = 25% of your life and mana back, which is very significant for 1 mastery point. It also scales well late game where 5% of your HP at level 18 with items is much more than if you were lower level

Butcher and feast: really disagree here. Why take AD marks over attack speed if it doesn't make a difference? Also, if you hit 5/6 and 5/7 per wave, that's 10 per minute or 1 per 6 sec. 3 health per 6 = 5 health per 10, abs 1.67 mana per 10. It's not amazing but nothing to sneeze at. It makes a difference early game, and I sometimes even take them on junglers

It takes 50 CS to make up 1 potion's worth of healing at the cost of 2 mastery points. You can easily make up that sustain with more damage in masteries + lifesteal item even if you just had a doran's blade or runes, which will also scale into mid game rather than a flat 3HP. IE - get 2% more armor pen mastery and do 20 more damage a hit, even at 10% lifesteal you'd be getting more HP back PER HIT rather than PER KILL. Even if you're comparing AD marks and only getting 1HP back per hit you'll still be getting more back than 3 HP per kill, especially since this counts towards champion hits too.

If youre jungling the tough skin is worth more than these 2 since all the monsters in the camp are hitting you this reduces more damage while you only hit 1 minion at a time with single targets.

ValyrianBladeNov 10, 20141 votes

I guess it depends on your role. As an adc (mainly caitlyn) I don't want cdr as my autos do more than my q late game so I don't give up much for those points in Butcher/feast. I also need the offense points to get 3% increased damage at the end of the tree. I don't like double edged sword on ranged champions but maybe that's my mistake and I should move a point there (as I'm starting to really like it on melee).

Wrt dangerous game, I find in most team fights: the first 1-2 kills happen before I take much damage, I'm typically 80-100% health Thanks to good positioning and peel (so only 3 kills left to contribute at all really). I also don't necessarily get an assist on the kills against the backline as if we're within range of eachother I'm probably dead soon. So I'll maybe get 5% back in total from the fight before the last kill, and if we score the ace it doesn't matter if I get anything back as we're going to be pushing freely and by the time they respawn my lifesteal will have me back to near full even if I only have dorans still (or I'll be out of harms way before they respawn if we have shorter death timers).

Again as an adc, yes 50cs = 1 potion is atrocious when you think about it. That said, it's not really about that, I gain a huge advantage if I can survive in Lane long enough to get BF sword on my first back. Even more if I can grab boots/potions with it. Even if those 2 points give me a 2% better rate of getting bf sword on first back I'd say it's worth it. I can only buy 1 potion off of the start and will be hitting about 50cs when I do that first back, so it does basically come out to being a free potion plus some mana (and slightly easier last hitting).

Havardy W Nov 10, 20141 votes

I guess it depends on your role. As an adc (mainly caitlyn) I don't want cdr as my autos do more than my q late game so I don't give up much for those points in Butcher/feast. I also need the offense points to get 3% increased damage at the end of the tree. I don't like double edged sword on ranged champions but maybe that's my mistake and I should move a point there (as I'm starting to really like it on melee).

CDR still is largely useful on AA dependent champs to have abilities available more often especially when you dont get any CDR items, cait included. More R casts (CDR reduces ult cooldowns more than anything) which can pick up more kills when needed. Double edged is a must, free damage at a safe range so why not? 2 extra damage on butcher should not make or break your CS, 3 HP on kill is less than 1 minion auto attack.

Peacemaker is your poke and AOE damage, not your main damage dealer. That said you should still use the ability and just just sit around to AA and that's it late game. Having the ability to soften the enemy up more far exceeds the benefit for 2 damage on minion per AA.

Wrt dangerous game, I find in most team fights: the first 1-2 kills happen before I take much damage, I'm typically 80-100% health Thanks to good positioning and peel (so only 3 kills left to contribute at all really). I also don't necessarily get an assist on the kills against the backline as if we're within range of eachother I'm probably dead soon. So I'll maybe get 5% back in total from the fight before the last kill, and if we score the ace it doesn't matter if I get anything back as we're going to be pushing freely and by the time they respawn my lifesteal will have me back to near full even if I only have dorans still (or I'll be out of harms way before they respawn if we have shorter death timers).

Totally assuming you get the perfect team comp and peels & positioning required. This isnt even assuming you get dove on by an assassin or bruiser which can burst you hard but if your team is able to kill someone else before you die it can potentially be the game winning heal to let you live through the fight and use your damage on buildings. Solely relying on the failure of the enemy team to survive rather than 1 point change in mastery for large instant sustain to keep you in it is really greedy

Again as an adc, yes 50cs = 1 potion is atrocious when you think about it. That said, it's not really about that, I gain a huge advantage if I can survive in Lane long enough to get BF sword on my first back. Even more if I can grab boots/potions with it. Even if those 2 points give me a 2% better rate of getting bf sword on first back I'd say it's worth it. I can only buy 1 potion off of the start and will be hitting about 50cs when I do that first back, so it does basically come out to being a free potion plus some mana (and slightly easier last hitting).

Spending points to do more damage to the opposing champs and minions at all times will increase your BF sword potential more

ValyrianBladeNov 11, 20141 votes

I'll fully admit you could be right about double edged sword. I don't take it because it makes you worse in Lane - if my opponent has it and I don't, both my support and I are doing 1.5% extra damage to him because of his increased damage taken whereas only he is doing 1.5% increased damage to me (as his support doesn't get to use his mastery). As caitlyn's job is basically to stop a late game adc from getting any ability to get ahead and carry late, I value advantages in Lane highly (and getting a free mastery point from that is a bonus).

With respect to cdr: Early game, caitlyn will go OOM if you just cast q whenever it's up, so no reason to have cdr late game it is good for poke and waveclear, but it won't out damage auto attacks if I'm in range and I won't need more than 1 per wave anyways. Poking a little more often might help in some instances, but I'd prefer the 5% attack speed to melt a single target faster. For her ultimate, it's only any good for taking out a survivor at the end of the fight, if you use it early a tank or someone with a spellshield will just eat it and 5% cdr isn't going to make it show up again during that fight.

With respect to dangerous game saving me from an assassin dive: Most if not all assassins use ignite as part of their combo. So if they're diving me I'm only getting half the healing now anyways. The probability that 2% health being the difference between life and death requiring my team to score a kill on a target I've damaged in the last 10 seconds during the 1-2.5 seconds that an assassin will take to burst me is simply too low for me to see it as worth a mastery point. I'm also not relying on the enemy team failing to survive, whereas taking dangerous game is relying on your teammates to secure a kill. I'm relying on my own positioning to keep me alive to clean the fight after I kite down the tank. Perhaps this is just the level of play I'm at though, where teamfights devolve in to either two skirmishes of front line vs back line or in to one team focusing someone down while the other team tries to disengage. At higher levels the fight may be more unified and This may make dangerous game worthwhile.

I'll also reiterate that I have no masteries left to get that would increase my damage more against my Lane opponent. I might be wrong here, perhaps expose weakness is more valuable for example (although most times I q-poke either when they're out of range for an aa or to catch them as they're running, I rarely q and have them still in range to aa afterwards).

Jungle Lux GodNov 10, 20141 votes

I agree with almost all of this except for Scouting and Reinforced Armor. Scouting is really only good if you are a support or jungler that plans on warding as much of the map as possible, and most newer players don't realize the power of warding, let alone buy a sightstone.

Reinforced armor I almost never take, because it is only useful in the later stages of the game, and only with random chance. It's only better against a full AD comp, which is bad in itself, or against a comp whose AP champ mostly deals damage with single target spells, like Ryze or Veigar. In that case, definitely take reinforced armor, but I don't think too highly of it.

Havardy W Nov 10, 20141 votes

I agree with almost all of this except for Scouting and Reinforced Armor. Scouting is really only good if you are a support or jungler that plans on warding as much of the map as possible, and most newer players don't realize the power of warding, let alone buy a sightstone.

Reinforced armor I almost never take, because it is only useful in the later stages of the game, and only with random chance. It's only better against a full AD comp, which is bad in itself, or against a comp whose AP champ mostly deals damage with single target spells, like Ryze or Veigar. In that case, definitely take reinforced armor, but I don't think too highly of it.

I'm not saying take reinforced armor, I'm saying to tailor it only if you need it. It's deep in the defensive tree so mostly reserved only for tank classes. If you have someone who is going 9/21/0 or more points in Defensive, don't just always have a set mastery template for that champ, change it up as needed based on the comp you're facing.

Scout is reserved for the very few who can use the extended range of the wards. Skilled warders should already know how to extend ward range by placing it on impassible terrain to force the wards over so there really isnt a point for extended cast range other than for more dash range in very niche situations; again not saying it's a must on these champs.