LoL - Standard Mastery Pages for ADCs in Season 6

Today our LoL Elo Boost Team is going to analyze the best mastery pages for the AD carries. As you know, with the 5.22 the Preseason has begun, and we got heavy changes in items, minions, structures, neutral objectives and masteries, and - indirectly or directly - buffs for the marksmen.

Since we are all experiencing the new changes, it’s common to see many players playing with wrong or suboptimal masteries: during our LoL Duo Queue Boost sessions our boosters often have to correct the mastery pages of their clients before starting the game.

So to help you guys, our Elo Boost Team, after the guide to the best support mastery pages, decided to write a guide about the mastery pages for marksmen as well.

For that, we will divide ad carries in three big categories. First, we have the AD casters, like Ezreal: unlike most ADC, they rely mostly on their abilities to deal damage instead of their auto-attacks. Then we have the typical crit-based auto attackers, like Caitlyn or Tristana, that deal damage mainly using their auto-attacks and usually build crit items in the early game (the most common build path is BF sword > Zeal > upgraded item from zeal > Infinity Sword, but that obviously changes depending on the champions, how the game is going and how much gold you have when you are back in base). These are the “old school attack damage carry” that will benefit from the heal of Warlord's Bloodlust (even after the nerfs, it’s still really good) since they will be auto-attacking and critting most of the time while they are safe in the backline.

Finally, we have a hybrid category of marksmen that use both auto-attacks and spells to deal damage: Lucian is the first that comes to mind. So without further ado, let’s get started with our pages!

Crit Based Auto Attackers (Tristana, Caitlyn)

This page focuses on getting a lot of attack damage, armor penetration and extra survivability thanks to lifesteal and Warlord's Bloodlust. If you prefer having more movement speed out of combat and you don’t need the help of Savagery for the last hitting you can get Wanderer as the tier 1 Cunning mastery (or split points according to your needs). Imaqtpie recommends this: if you are a member of the BDC, feel free to follow his advice.

Let’s start with the Ferocity tree. We take the attack speed as a tier 1 choice since these champions benefit mostly from that over the extra ability damage. As a t2, our LoL Boost Team recommends to pick up Feast for the extra heal and survivability.

Sure, 20 hp is a really low amount (and it doesn’t scale at all!), but it’s still the best option: these marksmen (Tristana, Caitlyn, Kog) are already insanely strong in the late game, so we want to focus on the laning phase and the extra heal is gonna help a lot.

For the same reason we pick the Lifestyle with Vampirism as a t3 choice. However, this mastery will scale pretty well into the late game since after your Bloodthirster your life steal will skyrocket, especially if you crit thanks to Warlord's Bloodlust.

As a t4, Bounty Hunter is usually the best option, since the 5% damage that you will unlock after killing all the five enemies is huge in the late game. However, since games are so snowbally and fast nowadays, if you have a support with spammable CC (Leona, Nami and so on) Oppressor is a good idea, since having 2,5% extra damage is really nice during the laning phase and the early-mid game in general, especially if you don’t get many kills.

The last two choices are no brainer. The extra armor penetration is huge in the mid-late game, and Warlord's Bloodlust is really good since you will crit a lot after your Infinity Edge: if you had the lifesteal from your masteries and items it’s gonna be really hard to kill you during a long fight.

For the Cunning tree, choices are easy: Savagery to farm more easily, Secret Stash for more sustain, more damage from Merciless, and lastly Dangerous Game, one of my favorite masteries in the Season 4. The other choices are pretty much useless, except for Wanderer like we told you before.

Hybrid AD Carries (Lucian, spells and autoattacks)

Sneaky, the ADC for Cloud 9, likes to go deep into the Cunning tree to pick the Thunderlord’s Decree mastery. It’s still a good choice and it comes down to personal preference.

For ad carries like Lucian that rely a lot on their spells our LoL Elo Boost Team prefers the extra ability damage as a tier 1 mastery. If you want more attack speed for those tricky last hits under the turret, feel free to split points. For tier 2, Feast is always the best option.

For tier 3, the lifesteal and spellvamp is not as good as it is for crit focused champions. On the other hand, Natural Talent isn’t really excellent unless your champion has some AP ratio (Lucian’s W or Corki, for example). However, feel free to pick the lifesteal/spell vamp for more sustain or to split points.

For tier 4, same problem as before. If you are confident, pick the Ferocity mastery; if you want more early game power and have a support with spammable crowd controls, pick Oppressor. For tier 5, the armor penetration is an obvious choice. For the keystone mastery, Fervor of Battle is the best choice according to our Elo Boost team.

Well, getting maximum stacks is pretty easy if you are alternating between autos and spells, especially if you are getting Essence Reaver as a first item, and the extra damage is insanely good throughout the whole game. Remember that Warlord’s Bloodlust is still a viable option for more sustain in the mid-late game if you are going to build a lot of crit, and Thunderlord’s Decree is also somehow viable (according to Sneaky).

Lastly, we go for 12 points in Cunning, we pick the same masteries of the previous page except for the tier 3. Here Meditation is sometimes a good choice since it will give you more mana to cast your spells: it’s really useful especially if you want to spam your abilities, now that mana potions have been removed (RIP). As we already said, Wanderer is a viable option as well.

AD Casters (Ezreal)

For AD casters like Ezreal, the page is slightly different. We still pick Sorcery and Feast like in the hybrid page, but here Natural Talent becomes even more important if your champion has ap rations (unless you are playing Urgot but come on.. who plays Urgot?). As for the previous two pages, the choice between Oppressor and Bounty Hunter is very situational, so pick the tier 4 mastery after considering your support and your expectations from the game. For tier 5, Armor Penetration is just too good to miss it.

Now for the Keystone Mastery, things get interesting. Our LoL Boost Team recommends the Deathfire Touch mastery. We get extra damage on low cooldown abilities, and the extra AD ratio is really nice as well. Remember that the added damage is over time, so if you harass your enemy under turret you will get aggro. Still, it’s just the better choice overall, but Fervor of Battle is also viable since you are going to get stacks pretty quickly spamming abilities.

For the Cunning tree, we pick the same masteries of the hybrid pages, but here Meditation is even more important since you will be relying even more on your abilities. For passive laning, 12 points into Resolve instead of Cunning.

One last thing. If you are going to play passively, or if you have a support that focuses on sustaining (Soraka, Sona, Soraka again because she is ridiculously overpowered) getting 12 points into resolve can be a good idea. You are going to sacrifice some damage to get more survivability in the early game: with the heals from your support, the extra damage reduction, health regen, and the extra value of shields and healing it’s gonna be a pain for the enemy bot lane to push you out of lane. However, we still prefer speccing into Cunning if you want to be more aggressive in the early game.

This last page ends our guide. If you liked our article, check our site in the next days for more content. If you want personal help about the mastery page for a specific champion or team composition even during the Champion Select, consider purchasing our LoL Duo Queue Boost Service for personal assistance in game.