Collar Tech - An underrated mastery
So...when it comes to class-based masteries, the one that always seems to come to mind, mouth or keyboard is mystic dispersion. Another fairly popular one I'd say is pure skill, although infamous nowadays.
But one very effective mastery that people don't seem to mention at all is collar tech.
It functions to reduce the opponent's combat power rate (power gained from attacking or being attacked). It might seem small across all levels, but trust me: you would be surprised at how much of a difference it actually makes.
I got it some time ago when I was doing my first clear of LoL with my rank 4 Ghost. She was sig 40 at the time. At first, I was a bit reluctant because I felt I wouldn't get much effect out of it. Nevertheless, I decided to put 3 points into it. Needless to say, I was completely surprised at how good it was! Makes her rotation so much easier at a lower sig level. Less power for opponent equals more specials for you, and less time to worry about enrage timer. It quickly became my favorite mastery. After the run, I had to turn it off for some time because I ran full suicides, max willpower, coagulate, and 2 points in MD mostly for my Claire. There were no extra points to put in, unfortunately.
After a few months of running suicides, fast forward till about 2 days ago, and I was completing act 6. I had reached 6.3.5 Mysterio boss, and I had to use Stealthy. Recoil was already posing a major threat, and the bleed gave me less health to work with. The poison also reduced the heal I got from the falter. In addition, I noticed a few nodes elsewhere that punished the use of suicides. I had to turn it off, and completely change my masteries. Maxed despair, and retrained collar tech. With this setup, I was able to beat Mysterio and carry on with my run, and also control fights even better with my Ghost and G2099 when I was clearing the paths.
Man, I didn't realize how much I missed collar tech until I put it back on! Granted, I have the most ranked up Champs from the tech class, and I'm also planning on putting a fourth point once the cores come back to the loyalty store hopefully tomorrow. Ever heard the saying: "a max sig Ghost can get to 2 bars before her opponent reaches one bar"? Well, my rank 5 Ghost at only about sig 100 can do that with 3 points in collar tech! And no, you don't need to drastically change your playstyle for it to work either.
Now let's analyse with a few tech Champs.
Ghost- As above
G2099- Makes her rotation easier as well (not really much to say here as she can already control power)
Hulkbuster- Can allow him to weave in mre heavies than he normally would be able to, which is huge!
Punisher 2099- With collar tech, I believe in overdrive he would cause his opponent to gain zero power instead of the normal 90% (haven't tested it yet tho).
Warlock- Haven't tested him either, but I think it would be a similar case to hulkbuster.
As for other tech Champs, they obviously benefit as well. I'll just stop with these 5 so this won't be too long.
