Season 3: Defense Masteries

After a brief interruption due to a national holiday involving the mass consumption of plump fowl, the examination of Season 3 masteries continues. Today we'll look at the new Defense masteries.

Again, you can follow along using these mastery calculators:

Season 2: http://leaguecraft.com/masteries
Season 3: http://www.finalesfunkeln.com/s3/

It should be immediately apparent that the Defense masteries have changed fairly dramatically. While a few of the old favorites remain untouched, almost everything has been at least moved, if not replaced entirely.

The Armor and Magic Resistance masteries are conspicuously missing from the first tier, replaced by the Health Regen and Health per Level masteries. The former of these two has undergone a large revision, increasing the amount of Health Regen granted based on how much Health you're missing. Summoner's Resolve and Tough Skin are notable in that they are two of the only masteries in the entire Defense tree which have not been moved or altered in any way.

The second tier features the Armor and Magic Resistance masteries that were missing from the first. Moving them down a tier makes them slightly less accessible, a necessary change given their ubiquitous use at the end of Season 2. Bladed Armor is also now in this tier, meaning all the essential jungle masteries can be obtained with only seven or eight points invested.

In the third tier is Veteran's Scars, the only remaining Defense mastery which has not been altered or moved. Indomitable has been renamed Unyielding, and now only reduces damage from champions. Two new masteries also appear in this tier. Relentless decreases the effectiveness of slows (e.g. a 40% slow becomes a 34% slow), and Safeguard reduces damage incurred by turrets. While the Defense tree is useful to any champion, these and other specialized masteries make it clear that this tree is primarily aimed at helping bruisers and tanks.

All of the previous fourth tier Defense masteries have been removed, leaving the tree completely without Movement Speed or Cooldown Reduction. The new fourth tier is populated by Tenacious and Juggernaut, two masteries which split the crowd control reduction and % Maximum Health once given by Season 2's final Defense mastery. There is also Block, a mastery which reduces damage from champion auto-attacks. This tier is one of the strongest in the Defense tree due to the power of crowd control reduction and the direct effective health benefits of % Maximum Health.

The Defense tree's penultimate tier is also completely different. Defender is an incredibly strong mastery in a team fight, granting up to five Armor and Magic Resistance with a single point. Legendary Armor isn't quite so amazing, but if you're a champion with a strong defensive steroid or defense itemization heavy on Armor and Magic Resistance it can be potent. Good Hands has moved here from Utility, and now only costs one point for the full effect. Finally, Reinforced Armor serves to help protect a tank or bruiser from the crit happy end-game of enemy AD carries. Because both this tier and the previous tier have so many compelling masteries, putting more than 21 points into Defense may be common.

Honor Guard is now the final Defense mastery, and costs only one point for 3% damage reduction. In Season 2 it cost three points for half the effect, making Honor Guard the recipient of one of the largest buffs any mastery has ever seen. If you're going to go deep into Defense, this is a must-have mastery.

Overall, the Defense tree is much, much stronger in Season 3. In Season 2 most everything past the third tier had little to do with actually tanking, or was a very marginal increase in durability. The new masteries are quite the opposite, very few masteries do not relate directly to taking less damage, and almost all have value to one champion or another. Even though the masteries are aimed toward bruisers and tanks, even carries and supports may well be inclined to invest heavily in this tree.