Runes Corner: Stormlord's Mandate and Spellslinger's Surge

Hello! Welcome to another Runes Corner! In the past we’ve talked about new runes with new gameplay effects you haven’t seen before. However, on top of building new content we are also looking for opportunities to bring back some of the keystones you love and see if we can make them even better.

Today, we will be discussing how we’ve built off of Thunderlord’s Decree and Stormraider’s Surge to create two new keystone Runes, Stormlord’s Mandate and Spellslinger’s Surge. Those names are temporary and will almost certainly change. We’ll cover Stormlord’s Mandate first.

Stormlord’s Mandate: http://i.imgur.com/GB9W0oT.jpg

Hitting a champion with 3 unique attacks or abilities within 2 seconds deals bonus magic damage. Damage: 40-220(+25% Bonus AD)(+20% Ability Power) Cooldown: 50 seconds

http://i.imgur.com/vqxDyUF.gif

We mentioned a while ago that we’ve been testing a Thunderlord’s replacement and this is it! Stormlord’s Mandate takes Thunderlord’s and increases its power and cooldown in order to focus it more on all-ins.The keyword unique is key to binding this to all-in plays. At face value, Thunderlords seems like it encourages you to commit to dangerous all-ins and rewards you with burst damage for doing so. On live, however, we have to balance Thunderlord’s damage around champions that can trivially activate Thunderlord’s on cooldown with a single ability. By changing the trigger to require unique spells or abilities we can re-focus this on providing greater burst damage in actual all-in situations.

So, how does unique work? Each spell, ability, or individual attack counts once towards triggering this. Sounds pretty simple. Let’s look a some examples. Start with an easy one: Mystic Shot. You fire it and it hits your opponent. That’s one. Attacks work the same way. The biggest change is how it works with damage over time effects. For example, Miss Fortune’s Make it Rain. When you cast that on an enemy it deals damage rapidly for 2 seconds but it still only counts as one spell. With the “unique” flag Stormlord’s Mandate won’t be instantly triggered by Make it Rain the way Thunderlord’s was. If you would like to actually play and experiment with the unique keyword, check out Maokai’s passive for a better idea. Overall, the unique keyword allows these keystones to bind more to all-ins and intense fighting rather than specific champion abilities.

Spellslinger’s Surge: http://i.imgur.com/FCuaxSz.png

Hitting a champion with 3 unique attacks or abilities within 2 seconds grants 30%-60% movement speed for 3 seconds. Additionally, Melee champions gain 75% slow resistance while active. Cooldown: 15 seconds

http://i.imgur.com/hojeKu7.gif

Spellslinger’s Surge is a modification we’ve been testing to the Stormraider’s Surge keystone mastery. Many players find the movement speed granted by Stormraider’s exciting. However it was hard to predict when you would do enough damage to trigger it. We saw an opportunity to use the “unique” keyword to provide that same effect in a more understandable way while also creating a parallel rune to Stormlord’s. Spellslinger’s Surge lets you get a reliable burst of movement speed in the middle of your all-in, allowing you to decide whether to disengage or continue chasing down that enemy.

Thanks everyone for reading. We’re really thrilled to be bringing back some of the fan favorite keystones. Let us know what you think of the changes down below, we will also be around to answer questions and discuss with you.

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You can check the previous Runes Corner posts here: Runes Corner: Runes Content Development Peek Runes Corner: Meteor Sneak Peek Runes Corner: Hunt of the Bloodmoon Sneak Peek Runes Corner: Domination Major Slot Sneak Peek