General Guide by Searz
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Team 1
Team 2
Ability Sequence
4
14
15
17
18
1
8
10
12
13
2
3
5
7
9
6
11
16
Not Updated For Current Season
The masteries shown here are not yet updated for the current season, the guide author needs to set up the new masteries. As such, they will be different than the masteries you see in-game.
Masteries
Introduction
This is an analysis of how useful different masteries are.
Keep in mind that even though my knowledge of the game is vast, I'm only stating my opinion.
The builds are just some examples of what masteries I'd use on some champions. I play most of them, but not all.
Legend
AD = Attack Damage
AS = Attack Speed
CrC = Critical-strike Chance
CrD = Critical-strike Damage
ArP = Armor Penetration
MrP = Magic/MR Penetration
HP = Hit/Health Points
HP5 = Heath-regen Per 5 seconds
MP5 = Mana-regen Per 5 seconds
CDR = Cooldown Reduction
AP = Ability Power
MR = Magic Resist
GP10 = Gold per 10 seconds
/lvl = Per Level (bonuses which you gain a part of with each level)
AoE = Area of Effect
The Offense Tree
Summoner's Wrath Good mastery. The only dumb thing about this is that  Ignite gives 5AD and 5AP, not 10AP. 1AD is worth ~2AP... |
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Brute Force Good mastery. I even pick it on 90% of my casters just because  Mental Force
is ****ing terrible.. |
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Mental Force Really bad mastery. Should provide 2AP per point to compare with Brute Force
since 1AD is worth about 2AP. BUFF PLOX RIOT |
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Butcher Decent mastery. Only really useful to junglers though. |
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Alacrity Pretty good for anyone who has use of AS. This alone makes jungling a lot better. |
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Sorcery Good mastery. CDR is almost always useful, no matter your role. |
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Demolitionist Ok mastery. Gives 10 damage before armor. Meaning about 3 actual damage to towers. |
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Deadliness Really bad mastery. AD/lvl is and has always been a really ****ty stat at the levels Riot has implemented it. |
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Weapon Expertise Good mastery. I'd like to see Riot enabling you to spend 4 points in Sorcery
to reach this, for those physical damage champions that can't use AS well. |
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Arcane Knowledge Good mastery. Used to be stronger, but it was a little too strong for being so far up. I'd like what I said on Weapon Expertise
to be done for
Alacrity
and
Arcane Knowledge
too. |
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Havoc Good mastery. The numbers aren't high enough to make you want to sacrifice most other good masteries for it though. |
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Lethality Very strong mastery. It may not do anything early on, but in lategame it'll be great on anyone who uses crit. |
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Vampirism Good mastery. Worth grabbing if life steal is useful for the champion in question. |
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Blast Pretty decent. Not strong, nor weak. |
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Sunder Strong mastery on anyone who can make good use of the ArP. |
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Archmage Pretty good. Mostly effective in lategame with lots of AP though. |
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Executioner Strong mastery. Since it's the last ("ultimate") point however; I feel like they should give it a small buff. I'd like to see it activate below 50% HP, or nerfed and always be active. |
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Overall analysis of the Offense tree
Currently the overall strongest mastery tree because of how much every point in the tree is worth. The points in defense and especially utility are worth less.
You could run 21 utility or defense and go 9 points into offense for 10%ArP or MrP, but right now it's just not worth it. RIOT, BALANCE MASTERIES PLOX.
The Defense Tree
Summoner's Resolve Useful if you happen to grab any of those spells. |
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Resistance Decent mastery. Helps a lot early on and less in lategame (because of the diminishing returns of MR). |
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Hardiness Decent mastery. Helps a lot early on and less in lategame (because of the diminishing returns of armor). |
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Tough Skin A pretty bad mastery. Only reason to take it would be to reach  Bladed Armor
.
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Durability It's a little on the weak end of the scale, but  Veteran's Scars
totally makes up for that. |
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Vigor Really bad mastery. Here Riot did another big mistake in having the same amount of stats for 2 totally different stats (see Mental Force). MP5 (  Meditation
) is worth about DOUBLE what HP5 is.
Vigor
should be giving 2HP5 per point (max 6HP5). 1HP5 just doesn't cut it. |
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Indomitable Pretty good mastery. Helps a lot against damage over time spells and in the jungle. |
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Veteran's Scars Great mastery. Gives a big chunk of flat HP for just one point. |
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Evasion One of the worst masteries in the game. Let's say that ~40% of all damage is AOE, then this would reduce 1.2% damage, overall. |
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Bladed Armor Great mastery for any defensive jungler. (  Rammus,  Amumu among others)
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Siege Commander Ok mastery. Gives ~1% more damage to towers. You'll need a combined AD of over 300 to deal more damage than Demolitionist
would. |
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Initiator Good mastery. Worth picking up if you think you'll be needing that small boost to your initiating speed. |
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Enlightenment Pretty good mastery. It gives an attractive stat for most tanky champions. |
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Honor Guard Pretty bad. It can roughly compare to Resistance
and
Hardiness
. Those are tier 1 masteries and not very strong either.. |
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Mercenary Kind of bad. It's not a big amount of gold, it's also highly situational and relies on snowballing. I just don't like the idea of the mastery at all. |
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Juggernaut Strong mastery. Since it's the last ("ultimate") point however; I feel like they should give it a small buff. +3%HP really isn't much, I'd like to see +5%. |
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Overall analysis of the Defense tree
It contains a few stats that are attractive to tanks and tanky DPS, but the general value of the masteries are slightly lower than the ones in offense and I'd like to see a few of them buffed.
Unless your champion is very mana hungry you should probably be spending 9 points to reach the 9-point-wonder
Veteran's Scars
on most champions.
The Utility Tree
Summoner's Insight Provides a few useful bonuses. Worth picking up if you've got any of those spells and skill down utility anyways. |
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Good Hands Pretty decent mastery. Usually worth picking up the first point since it gives 4% instead of 3%. |
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Expanded Mind Good mastery. It went from being the worst mastery in the game to being pretty good. To get the same amount of mana from the old one you'd have to have more than ~5000mana. |
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Improved Recall A decent mastery. It never hurts to be able to recall faster, but it'll rarely change anything. |
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Swiftness Good mastery. MS is useful on a lot of champions and very good on some. |
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Meditation Good mastery. Especially useful early on (like all kinds of regen). |
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Scout Really bad mastery. Only useful on supports and even on them it's not that good.. |
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Greed Bad. It gives ~280 gold by 25 min. You get ~70 gold per point after 25min.. Just to make a quick comparison; normal masteries give ~42g per point and you receive that benefit instantly. Gold also gives less benefit in lategame because it needs inventory space to help while stat bonuses don't. |
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Transmutation Bad mastery. Another case of Riot grouping stats together (see Mental Force and Vigor). Vampirism
- while not THAT strong - is fine as it is while spell vamp is worth much less than life steal. That makes this mastery very lacking in comparison. |
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Runic Affinity Very good mastery for anyone who picks up neutral buffs a lot. AP carries and junglers in particular. |
Wealth Bad mastery. Needs to sit at at least 30gold per point to be decent. |
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Awareness Bad mastery. It was good back in the days, but now a lot of masteries got buffed while Awareness
wasn't and was put a lot further down in the tree. It just doesn't give enough for a mastery that is that hard to reach. Keep in mind that it's useless in lategame, so it needs to be noticeable early/mid to be of any use. |
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Sage Pretty bad. Not only is it a small amount, it's also highly situational and relies on snowballing. I just don't like the idea of the mastery at all. |
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Strength of Spirit Decent, but unless you're stacking mana this is rather bad. Especially in comparison to  Intelligence
. I'd like to see this in tier 3. Tier 5 is too high, unless they buff it. |
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Intelligence Very strong. Has always been and still is one of the strongest masteries in the game. |
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Mastermind (Still) The best mastery in the game. Summoner spells are very powerful tools and this allows you to use them more often. It's as simple as that. |
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Overall analysis of the Utility tree
The worst mastery tree right now simply because the masteries in tier 3 and 4 are BAAAD (with the exception of
Runic Affinity
).Most other masteries are pretty good, but if you have to spend 8 points on bad masteries, it's sooo rarely worth it to go more than 9points into utility.
It's a good idea to go 8 or 9 points in if you're playing a mana hungry champion or someone who has great use of
Runic Affinity
or
Swiftness
.
Cost effectiveness
I'm using only basic items to calculate cost effectiveness.
I'm counting PER POINT, not with all the points.
"Approximates" means that I had to use an item with more than one stat to calculate the gold effectiveness. I can't get an exact number there. The numbers on those are probably slightly off, but shouldn't be more than 5 gold off (which is a fairly small number).
Offense
Brute Force
- 41.5g Mental Force
- 21.75g <-- OMG RIOT >.> Alacrity
- 28g <-- OMG RIOT >.> Vampirism
- 45g Archmage
- 27.2g per 100AP (this is just in the "twenties" because I put an even number like 100 there. It's not low)Approximates:
Sorcery
- 37.5gDefense
Resistance
- 33.33g Hardiness
- 33.33g Vigor
- 29g Veteran's Scars
- 79.17g Mercenary
- 8g per kill and assistUtility
Meditation
- 55.7g Wealth
- 20g <-- OMG RIOT >.> Greed
- 3g/minute 70.5g@25min (90sec at the start goes without gold income) Strength of Spirit
- ~40g per 400mana you haveApproximates:
Transmutation
- 28g <-- OMG RIOT >.> Intelligence
- 75gPer level masteries
Deadliness
- Blast
- 5.44g/lvl 98g@lvl18 Durability
- 3.96g/lvl 71.25@lvl18 Expanded Mind
- 8g/lvl 144@lvl18Approximates:
Enlightenment
- 5.6g/lvl 101g@lvl18All in all the big problems seem very clear here. Any mastery in the "twenties" (worth below 30gold per point) needs a buff really badly.
Honor Guard
and
Havoc
They can't be measured precisely, but if I compare them to similar stats I can get a relatively good figure of what they're worth. Havoc
compared to AD:1AD=41.5g
Damage = 50 = Havoc is worth ~10.375g (1.005*50-50=0.25damage)
Damage = 100 = Havoc is worth ~20.75g (1.005*100-100=0.5damage)
Damage = 200 = Havoc is worth ~41.5g (1.005*200-200=1damage)
Damage = 400 = Havoc is worth ~83g (1.005*400-400=2damage)
Not too shabby numbers I must say.
Honor Guard
compared to armor/MR:1Armor/MR=16.67g
Armor/MR = 25 = Honor Guard is worth ~20.94g ((100+25)/0.995-125=0.628armor AND MR)
Armor/MR = 50 = Honor Guard is worth ~25.1g ((100+50)/0.995-150=0.754armor AND MR)
Armor/MR = 100 = Honor Guard is worth ~33.5g ((100+100)/0.995-200=1armor AND MR)
Armor/MR = 200 = Honor Guard is worth ~50.26g ((100+200)/0.995-300=1.51armor AND MR)
So you need more than 100armor and MR to make
Honor Guard
about as good as
Resistance
and
Hardiness
.WAY too weak for a tier 5 mastery.
Why is it that
Honor Guard
is so much worse than
Havoc
then?That is because damage reduction has diminishing returns. ANOTHER case of Riot grouping totally different stats together --.--
Balance
Riot seriously needs to buff some masteries, because the balance is way off right now.
These NEED buffs:
Mental Force
- Buff to 2 AP per point. Vigor
- Buff to 2HP5 per point. Transmutation
- Buff to 1.5% Spell Vamp per point. (increase point total to 4 for an even number?) Wealth
- Buff to 50gold per point. (but if
Greed
isn't needed 30gold will do just fine)The above just can't compare to good masteries if these buffs are not implemented.
These could use buffs, but aren't complete **** (like the ones above):
Summoner's Wrath
- Buff the Ignite part to 10AP and 5AD. Tough Skin
- Buff to 2 damage blocked vs minions/monsters per point. Indomitable
- Buff to 1.5 damage blocked per point. Evasion
- Buffed to 3% reduced damage taken from AoE abilities per point. Honor Guard
- Buffed to 1% reduced damage taken per point. Scout
- Buff to +10% increased vision ward sight. Greed
- Buff to about 0.8 per point. (or even 1 per point, but that may be too strong. 1GP10 is more balanced than 0.5 in any case)Less important balance changes I believe would be good:
Executioner
- Buff to activate at below 50% HP. Durability
- (ONLY IF
Veteran's Scars
is nerfed to 25HP) Buff to 2HP per level and point. Mercenary
- Buff to 10gold per kill and point. Juggernaut
- Buff to +5%HP. Sage
- Buff to 50exp per kill.I implore you, Riot. Please balance masteries while the iron is still hot.
Mastery templates
Keep in mind that these are just the most standard masteries. There will be champions who don't fit my suggestions.
Casters: 21/0/9
You reach the mana, mana-reg and buff duration with just 9 points, then you can spend the rest on power. Until Riot buffs the utility masteries offense is simply a better choice for anyone who scale well with AP.In some rare cases you might benefit from 9defense more than utility, but you are a caster after all and mana is almost always very useful.
Support casters: 0/9/21
While utility is very lacking right now, supports just don't benefit much from any other masteries.Crit/AD carries: 21/9/0
Simply benefits most AD carries more than any other masteries. Sure you could go 9 into utility, but you need to consider how much laning power you'll lose, because 9 defense helps a ton.Physical damage tanks/offtanks: 21/9/0 or 1/21/8
Pick defense or offense depending on your needs.Magical damage tanks/offtanks: 1/21/8 or 21/9/0
Pick defense or offense depending on your needs.Physical damage junglers: 21/0/9
Offense is simply more powerful than other masteries. Use it.Magical damage tanky junglers: 0/21/9
Bladed Armor
just helps a ton for these junglers.Manaless champions: 21/9/0
Most of them should be running this setup because chances are they won't have much use of utility.Offense gives the most bang for your points right now, so if you have the choice; chances are that you'll want offense.
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Guide Discussion (15)
