The problem with cooldown runes.... and why mages need better cdr items

The problem is the most slot/cost effective cool-down reduction runes is that they are level base. Meaning if you wanted to get 20-40% cooldown from your runes, you would have to go with the level scaling CDR runes and the have to wait until level 18 to get the max benefit from them.

This means you are forced to wait until lvl 18 to get max cdr, and if you want max cdr before that, you have to get it from items that may not be very appealing.

If I want max cdr from items here are the options.

None of these items are appealing as core mage items and tend to give stuff you don't really want like mana and mg resist. They also offer auto attack focus which is hardly appealing to immobile mages.

So if you want max CRD as soon as possible, you have to buy a combination of the above and live with the side effects .

You other option is wait for lvl 18 for cdr runes to kick in.