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Mastery guide

Mastery guide

Updated on October 14, 2011
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League of Legends Build Guide Author Searz Build Guide By Searz 8,379 Views 0 Comments
8,379 Views 0 Comments League of Legends Build Guide Author Searz Build Guide By Searz Updated on October 14, 2011
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Choose Champion Build:

  • LoL Champion: Amumu
  • LoL Champion: Kennen
  • LoL Champion: Garen
  • LoL Champion: Sona
  • LoL Champion: Ezreal
  • LoL Champion: Rumble
  • LoL Champion: Kassadin
  • LoL Champion: Udyr
  • LoL Champion: Alistar
  • LoL Champion: Vayne

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 use on some champions.

Legend

(for any abbreviations you don't understand)
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The Offense Tree


Deadliness
A good mastery on crit builds and works for champions who has no use of AP( Archmage's Savvy ), but is rather bad on most champions since only carries really benefit from crit.
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Cripple
Very nice to have. If you're grabbing Exhaust this is obviously something to get. Can make ganks really scary.
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Plentiful Bounty
Very good to have with Smite. While great, if you specc 21 into defense you're better off with 1 point in Utility Mastery than this.
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Archmage's Savvy
Kinda meh mastery, but since Deadliness is useless on casters this is often the best choice for those going for Archaic Knowledge .



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Sorcery
Not a very strong mastery, but you need 4 in this to be able to get to Archaic Knowledge .
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Alacrity
Weak mastery. Skip it if you have more use of CDR ( Sorcery) and other things.
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Burning Embers
Not a bad mastery, but it's kind of in the wrong spot. It's only useful for casters and they would of course rather have Archaic Knowledge than this (they only have 9 points to spend in offense). It would fit better in the higher rows.
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Archaic Knowledge
Very strong mastery. Definitely one of the strongest masteries in the game. Great for those who rely heavily on magic damage.
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Sunder
Very good mastery for all physical damage dealers. Quickly gets better than Brute Force since it's the double amount, but the first 3, 4 or 5 levels still benefit the most from the AD.
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Offensive Mastery
Very good for junglers and pretty decent for lasthitting in the lane. About equal to Alacrity in usefulness when laning.



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Brute Force
Very good mastery for the early stages of the game. Doesn't do much in lategame if you don't build crit, but on crit builds this is a great mastery. (AD scales with crit)
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Lethality
Kinda bad mastery. As everyone should know; CrD is useless in earlygame and only really effective in lategame. Also keep in mind that it doesn't really increase the total damage of your crits by 10%, it increases crit damage (a modifier) by 10%, which translates to +5% total crit damage and only +4% with Infinity Edge.
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Improved Rally
Not a bad mastery, but just like Burning Embers it's kind of in the wrong spot. The champions that are supposed to go down offense are usually those who build crit and I don't feel like Rally is worth spending a spell slot on when playing someone with high damage output.
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Havoc
Great mastery. If you benefit from all the masteries above this it's a very good mastery to get.
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Overall analysis of the Offense tree


Jumping in for the 15%MrP is very worthwhile on most magic damage dealers.
But going deep is only really worthwhile on a (very) few junglers and champions you build crit on since most masteries in the tree are most useful for those who build crit. The problem is often that most champions don't benefit much from crit, cutting down the "user-base" by quite a lot.
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The Defense Tree


Mender's Faith
Good if you grab the spell, but Heal is pretty bad outside of low level play.
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Resistance
Resistances are very good early on since they make your HP-reg and Health Potion more effective.
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Preservation
Very good to have if you pick up Revive. Revive only really works with special tactics though.
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Hardiness
Resistances are very valuable early on since they make your HP-reg and Health Potion more effective.



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Strength of Spirit
A very strong mastery. Helps loads in the laning phase. 1000mana = 10HP5. Also good in the fact that it gives more stats for your money when buying mana items.
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Evasion
Dodge is a kinda meh stat in itself, but when used with Nimbleness it's actually pretty good on some champions.
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Defensive Mastery
Great for junglers. Also worth spending a point in if you don't have anything better to spend it on.
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Nimbleness
This little speed boost is the only reason dodge is a good stat. Dodge reduces less damage than armor in early/midgame and dodge only affects normal attacks while armor affects physical abilities too.
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Harden Skin
Decent mastery. Generally not worth it beyond the first point. I don't know if it's for balancing or a bug, but it seems that it reduces the damage of monsters by less than one point.
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Veteran's Scars
Decent mastery. HP is a good early stat. Obvious choice if you go this deep into the defense tree because there's really nothing else to pick here..
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Willpower
Pick it up if you have Cleanse. Don't go into the defense tree just for this though since Presence of the Master simply is better.
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Ardor
Kinda bad for most champions. Only really good for casters that specc deep into the defense tree, but most casters should stick to 21utility. To inform those who get this mastery for the AS; it increases multiplicatively, not additively. That makes it useless early on, but good in lategame.
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Reinforce
Good to have if you have Fortify. Don't go into the defense tree just for this though, shorter cooldown ( Presence of the Master ) is probably better.
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Tenacity
Very good mastery. It's damage resistance that can't be penetrated with ArP and MrP. It makes health a more effective stat.
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Overall analysis of the Defense tree


Jumping in with 9 points for Strength of Spirit , 6MR and armor is a good idea with most mana champions.
Spending 21 points is good for a few tanks and junglers, but if a jungler can use 21utility and still stay at high HP, that's the superior choice.
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The Utility Tree


Spatial Accuracy
Of course very good to get if you pick up Teleport. It certainly helps when teleganking.
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Good Hands
A decent mastery despite what most people may think. Shaving precious seconds off in lategame can win games.
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Perseverance
This probably seems like an good mastery to most of you, but that is not the case. In most cases it gives about 0.3HP5 and 0.5MP5 during early laning and 0.6+HP5 and 0.8+MP5 (depending on items) in lategame for 3 points. It's simply not worth spending more than one point in this on most champions.
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Haste
Grab if you got Ghost. It's easy to reach and you will rarely have to skip any good masteries for it.



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Awareness
Very good mastery. Pretty much necessary for all junglers and not to be underestimated for laners. Junglers will have trouble keeping up in levels without it and won't level up from doing the small golems.
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Expanded Mind
Hands down THE most useless mastery in the game. It's bugged or has a faulty tooltip because it increases only base mana. That's about +10mana at lvl1 and +2 per lvl for most champions, and that's with 4 points..
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Greed
A very good mastery. It may not seem like much, but consider it as an extra 2-3 free wards per game, and that's only for one mastery point.
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Meditation
Very good for any mana user. This is the reason many mana heavy tanks/tanky DPSers can grab utility and get defensive runes instead of mana-reg runes.
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Utility Mastery
Very good mastery. Junglers kinda need at least one point in this mastery. Consider if you need any of the buffs or if you are low priority for the buffs and masterize accordingly.
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Insight
Good to have if you get Clarity, but it's not a spell I'm too fond of. Works on some supporters sometimes tho, I guess.



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Quickness
Great mastery. For only 3 points you get some very useful extra mobility. Many champions have great use of this.
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Blink of an Eye
Great to have when are using Flash. It's a little annoying that you sometimes have to sacrifice a point in other good masteries, but it's worth it.
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Intelligence
Great mastery. Very useful for most champions in the game and absolutely awesome for some. Gives more than double the CDR Sorcery gives.
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Mystical Vision
Pretty much a must have if you're using Clairvoyance. It increases the duration by 66%. That's kinda huge :o
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Presence of the Master
Probably the best mastery in the game. Summoner spells are very powerful tools and this allows you to use them more often. Simple as that.
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Overall analysis of the Utility tree


The cookie-cutter mastery tree. Simply the overall most useful mastery tree on most champions.
If you have a tank that needs mana you can just go down 21utility and use armor seals instead of MP5. Same with CDR; just go down utility and use MR glyphs instead.

If you can use this tree on a jungler without getting dangerously low and slowing down much; DO IT. These masteries are perfect for junglers if they don't have problems in any of the defensive/offensive areas.

You can basically use this tree on most champions and fill any lacking spots with runes.
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Cookie-cutter masteries for different roles

Keep in mind that these are just the most standard masteries. There will be champions who don't fit my suggestions.

Casters: 9/0/21

Going deep into offense and defense is not useful for most casters since they will have to spend points on things they don't benefit much from.


Support casters: 0/9/21, 3/6/21 or 9/0/21

They are casters and they (usually) don't benefit much from damage, so they should probably stay away from offense. ALL supports run Clairvoyance right now and utility makes CV so much better, so that's just another reason to go utility. Defense works too, but is often subpar compared to utility. Utility is basically everything a support caster needs but durability, but you can't get everything on a support :P


Crit/AD carries: 21/0/9

THE most standard masteries for carries are simply all the way down in the offensive tree. Most of the offensive tree caters to crit carries so it's not exactly strange.


Physical damage tanks/offtanks 0/9/21, 0/21/9 or 21/0/9

Most physical damage tanks won't be building enough crit to make going down offense worthwhile, but some champions who rely on burst or have strong defensive abilities can still use 21 offense effectively.


Magical damage tanks/offtanks: 0/21/9, 9/0/21 or 9/21/0

It's all about which one helps you farm the best. Offense is a nono after 9 points, obviously.


Physical damage junglers: 15-17/0-3/10-15, 1/8/21 or 21/0/9

In offense you can pick up a varied amount of masteries that benefit your jungle greatly early on. In mid/lategame utility will probably always shine the brightest, but that is of course if you can get through your early jungling with it.


Magical damage junglers: 1/12/17, 1/8/21 or 9/0/21

Magic damage junglers recieve very little benefit from going down the offense tree and should thus stick mostly to defense and utility. I use 1/12/17 on Amumu and similar ones for Wingborne Storm Udyr, but obviously picking up dodge instead of Strength of Spirit (like this 1/13/16).


Manaless champions are too diverse to standardize, but a lot of them benefit more from offense and defense than champions with mana because they can't use the mana-reg in utility.
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