Analyzing the Season 3 Masteries: Offensive Tree

Analyzing the Season 3 Masteries: Offensive Tree

With the coming of Season 3 being very imminent I felt the need to create a series based purely around some of the changes in the Season 3 patch which includes a brand new set of mastery trees. Although a lot of the talents are re-used, most of them are moved around to a large degree even though they are still in their respective trees. Below is an image of what the mastery trees look like.

The following analysis uses the above pictures and separates them into rows and lists what the talents are from left to right.

Row 1

Summoner's Wrath
Position change: None
Mastery change: Surge bonus removed and a new Garrison bonus added.
Analysis: This mastery will probably serve the same purpose as it did in Season 2 with the same users although there will be an increase in Dominion players using this mastery because of the buff  Garrison with it. The bonus may not seem like much but when it comes to defending towers from minions or defending against a 1v2/1v3 dive it could substantially change the tide of the battle.

Fury
Position change: Changed from a tier 2 mastery to a tier 1 mastery. No longer required for Weapon Expertise
Mastery change: None
Analysis: Due to the lack of mastery change there really is no change in who takes it although due to it being a tier 1 mastery we may see some people inventing new mastery combinations to give attack speed to some defensive/utility primary users.

Sorcery
- Position change: Changed from a tier 2 mastery to a tier 1 mastery. No longer required for Arcane Knowledge
- Mastery change: None
Analysis: Basically the same as Fury except to gain a small amount of cooldown reduction rather than attack speed.

Butcher
Position change: None
Mastery change: None
Analysis: No changes whatsoever so there is nothing new to analyze here. Although this will probably be an extremely high priority take for junglers due to the new intensity of the jungle.

Row 2

Deadliness
Position change: Changed from a tier 3 mastery to a tier 2 mastery.
Mastery change: Attack damage gained per ranked has been increased. No longer used to unlock Lethality.
Analysis: Due to the position change, this is now accessible by tank-like characters who go 9-21-0 in masteries and use attack damage fairly well (like Irelia). Also due to the mastery change this will allow AD carries and those who abuse it best to become even stronger as the game goes on, gaining 12 AD at level 18 with max rank.

Blast
Position change: Changed from a tier 4 mastery to a tier 2 mastery
Mastery change: None
Analysis: Although there was no mastery change, it is placed far earlier in the mastery tree which allows tanky (such as Shen) or even support-like (such as Sona) champs to gain an AP/level stat in lane to increase their normally low damage.

Destruction
Position change: None. However, this replaces Demolitionist.
Mastery change: (from Demolitionist) Changed bonus 10 damage to towers into a percent damage increase to towers
Analysis: This will hinder strong early pushers (like AD carries and Nidalee) in the early game but will greatly increase their pushing efficiency later in the game. For example, with 50 damage to a turret after armor mitigation will be 52.5 damage (+2.5) with max rank of this mastery but later in the game when someone might have do 200 damage to a turret after armor mitigation, it will cause it to do 210 damage (+10). As you can see, it effectively quadruples the bonus damage as the damage done increases later into the game and continues like this forever.

Row 3

Havoc
Position change: None (although it was shifted to the left side of the tree)
Mastery change: Damage per rank increased. Now 2% at max rank rather than 1.5%.
Analysis: Much like Deadliness except for there is no position change which keeps it limited to those going primarily into the offensive mastery tree. Although unlike Deadliness, this is also most likely going to be the primary mastery for AP champions in the offensive tree that need points in tier 3.

Weapon Expertise
Position change: None
Mastery change: Armor penetration amount lowered.
Analysis: There is not much changed about this mastery, which makes it very hard to add anything to the analysis. Although there is one distinguishable thing here if you're noticed the pattern of the changes in stats. Riot seems to be focusing on making damage dealers deal more flat damage, tanks becoming tankier (less penetration to kill them), and supports being more support-esque.

Arcane Knowledge
Position change: None
Mastery change: Magic penetration amount lowered.
Analysis: Same as Weapon Expertise.

Row 4

Lethality
Position change: None
Mastery change: Changes to a 2-point mastery rather than 1. The extra critical strike damage has been drastically reduced. (10% originally -> 2.5%/5% now). Also no longer has a prerequisite to put points into it. However, it is now a requirement for Frenzy.
Analysis: This is one of the bigger changes in the mastery tree changes. It cuts the bonus critical damage in half and requires two points to even reach that. This will hurt AD carry output a slight amount although it shouldn't be TOO noticeable. However, to compensate this it no longer requires any other mastery and opens up a fairly useful mastery in the next row called Frenzy which will drastically make critical strikes better.

Brute Force
Position change: Changed from a tier 1 mastery to a tier 4 mastery.
Mastery change: Changed to a 2-point mastery rather than 3.
Analysis: There isn't much change here although it does deny AP mids from gaining a free 3 attack damage by putting points into it at the top of the mastery tree. This will limit the mastery to those who commit themselves to the offensive tree and make it so AP mids will have to sacrifice some points to obtain it as there is a LOT of good ability power masteries to choose from.

Mental Force
Position change: Changed from a tier 1 mastery to a tier 4 mastery.
Mastery change: Amount of AP gained per rank increased by 50% (1 to 1.5)
Analysis: This is going to make this mastery MUCH more desirable rather than side-stepping it for another mastery. At max rank it will increase by a total of 2 AP (from 4 to 6) which isn't very big at first glance but it will definitely change things when it comes down to the finite detail.

Spellsword
Position change: None (New Mastery!)
Mastery change: None (New Mastery!)
Analysis: One of the two HUGE changes in the offensive tree. This ability will make AP mids who are short-ranged or good auto attackers (Orianna, Anivia, Diana, etc) become MUCH stronger late game and even have slightly stronger late game. For example, early game if a champion has 20 AP it will cause their auto attacks to do an extra 1 point of damage. Although this is minor, it scales into 2, then 3-4, then even more as items like Doran's Ring is picked up in lane slowly gaining until the late game hits where someone has around 500-600 AP which will make auto attacks deal 25-30 bonus magic damage which may seem minor, but every little amount adds up in extended engagements.

Row 5

Frenzy
Position change: None (New Mastery!)
Mastery change: None (New Mastery!)
Analysis: The second of the two HUGE changes in the offensive tree. This ability will make critically striking that much more important and valuable. As at first glance this may not seem like much, when you have 1.6 attack speed, it will raise to around a constant 1.76 if you were to critically strike every 2 seconds. This may not seem like much but if you dealt 300 damage per hit, you would deal 480 damage per second before the bonus AS, and 528 damage per second after the bonus AS. And just like Spellsword, every little damage increase will add up in extended engagements.

Sunder
Position change: None
Mastery change: None
Analysis: Nothing new here at all, so there isn't much to analyze in comparison to Season 2.

Archmage
Position change: None
Mastery change: None
Analysis: Just like Sunder, nothing new here at all, so there isn't much to analyze in comparison to Season 2.

Row 6

Executioner
Position change: None
Mastery change: Decreased damage bonus, but increased the health threshold that the damage bonus applies to (5% damage bonus to those under 50% compared to 6% damage bonus to those under 40%
Analysis: Now, there is no huge change but it definitely changes the finite details of a fight. Now, the bonus damage is applied at higher health percentages, but the number is lowered to compensate. This will help mitigate the extra damage done by executioner champions (like Zed, Akali, etc) compared to those with much more sustained damage (Irelia, AD carries, Cassiopeia).

Make sure to stay tuned for the next article in the Season 3 Analysis series and maybe you'll learn something new or even theorycraft a new strategy for when it comes out!