User blog:YourPrivateNightmare/Discussing the new defensive mastery tree

Introduction
Ahoy community,

today we're going to talk about the updated defensive mastery tree.

As someone who likes to play tanks, this was a pretty big deal for me and I was really excited for this. however, it kinda turned out, that it's now a lot less easy to decide which masteries to pick.

That's why I'll now share my opinions on them and then expect you to tell me why I'm wrong.

So let's get started

Tier 1


this has replaced the mastery, which is now farther up.

What does this mean? Basically it's a small nerf to Bruisers, because they don't get the ~5 bonus armor/MR anymore, but it might be a valuable investment on ADCS, or assassins if your enemy team has a lot of slows.

Personally I'm hesitant and prefer, because it offers more safety to marksmen (and assassins, which I hardly play), but in case of , , , this mastery might even be better.

Tier 2
nothing changed

Tier 3


this replaced. It has also been slightly nerfed.

Basically this mastery is a must-have on anyone running 9/21/0, or 0/21/9, because tenacity is never not-needed (almost never), but this is not really different than before, because used to be pretty important on anyone with CC as well.

Tier 4


NOw this one bothers me the most. I'm really uncertain if it'S worth getting or not.

Basically, at no point in the game are you ever going to have exactly the same amount of armor and magic resist, thus you will get a sweet sweet bonus to the stat you're currently lacking, which is kinda helpful if you need to rack up defenses quickly.

The thing is tho...Usually, in a balanced build, you're going to ahve around 200 armor (champ-specific passives not included) and maybe 175 MR (if you slip in offensive items or a warmogs)

that means you'll get around 5~6 bonus armor/MR from the mastery. (since it only counts bonus stats)

'''Now that I'm writing this I'M actually realising that this mastery really isn't that good, especially if you have to sacrifice a point that you could use in, which gives you way better stats.

Ergo: this one sucks, don't get it.'''

and :

I used to take these if possible...but I just can't afford that now. Now that is that good, these just don't seem to make a lot of sense, unless you're running 21 points in defense on a champ who doesn't buy a lot of resistances. In that case, take them, because they offer better defense when just piling up HP.



quick note, this one got nerfed heavily (down to 1% form 3%), so the only reason to get it is, if yyou also want which is kinda essential on champs like,  and

Tier 5
Here's where the good stuff moved



now gives bonus Armor and Mr to up to 10% of your bonus stats. Which means items like give you 10 bonus armor, while the average MR item gives you 5 bonus MR.

Compared to the, that's a lot more (I wish there was a way to successfully combine those two without missing out on the other stuff)

Basically get as much of this as you can, but you're probably only able to invest 3 points if you also want adn the flat defensive stats from the Tier 3 masteries



nerfed by 1%, but imo still pretty strong on any tank with CC. Would absolutely get it.

Tier 6


must-have, finally. basically gives you 15 bonus armor and MR if you participate in a teamfight and also +3 in a simple 1v1 situation.

Closing words
All in all I think that Riot did a good job at making the defensive tree more diverse, but I do kinda feel bad that certain masteries can't be used to their fullest now.

PLease note that these are all my personal opinions. Feel free to argue against them if you have relevant arguments, because that helps me optimize my masteries.