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Old guards do you like the rune system in the game?

DeMoNSPaWn4·1/15/2020, 10:00:33 PM·15 votes·9,409 views

THIS POST MAY NOT BE THE MOST WELL WRITTEN I'M JUST RAMBLING AND CURIOUS ABOUT WHAT THE COMMUNITY THINKS I ALSO WANNA KEEP THIS KIND OF SHORT SO I DID LIMITED RESEARCH AND MAINLY JUST WANTED TO SEE WHAT OTHER THINK

I've been playing this game since season 4 and the highest rank i've achieved in that time is plat 2. I am a support main who focuses Braum. This is the perspective i will have on the game coming from this (what i mean is a silver adc main or a diamond jungler may view the game differently). So the way I see new runes is something that may seemingly give you a lot of options but in my opinion they always make the game harder to balance and they have a larger impact in the game than I would like to see. I think something out of the game shouldn't have such power within it.

The Old old System

The old system allowed for a really specific type of freedom that the new runes don't offer and that is you could choice any stats you wanted. They have an all ad team comp boom armor runes. Another example is LemonNation was known for taking gold generation runes and the new runes give you no gold generation options after klepto being removed. Looking at the old runes and their version of "keystones" being either the end of the masteries tree or quints. So Quints are straight stats and so is the mastery system with the three trees leading into these stat increases (3% increased dmg, 15% tenacity, or gain 5% out of combat movement speed) These you could only get one of provided low impact into the game.

The Current System

What I like about the new system is it is very simple for someone new to the game to learn how to use it and all. I also think this could have been accomplished with the old system with updates to make it more modern and easily accessible. The new runes I like at first because of how impactful they were then I realized these were just doing too much. I think runes in general offer too much. They can give a lot of damage or utility that previously wasn't accessible to you in the old system. I guess one of the bigger issues that I don't like is it feels like other champions can abuse this system more than the old one. Like how some champions can have a hard time picking runes when nothing really helps what your champion wants to do. I'm pretty sure I heard this with rumbles and karthus when the system was still new. Looking at other champions like Gangplank and Ezreal who were main abusers of klepto and the rune is now gone because of it. This wouldn't happen in the old system because every champion can get something out of stats. This is why I think runes make the game hard to balance and how they favor fighters. Fighters can access a lot more of the runes than any other champion in my opinion. They can take yellow and green trees making them have good stats and damage from conquer and the rest of the tree and can even synergize it well with green tree. I think they can even easily access almost any combination of trees with ease for the most part especially if starting with Yellow as their main tree.

**I want those who read this to also keep in mind that I don't think riot will be changing how runes work and will stick with this system for some time but i wanted to see how the rest of the community sees it and just wanted to create a conversion about different visions in the game and i want a different perspective from someone who actually likes new runes or see if others agree with me. I also wanted to start here because in general I think league of legends is a very high damage game and has turned more into a TDM instead of an objective based game ( even though obviously it is still an objective based game ) but i think this high damage version of league does make it less tactical and in my opinion the change of the rune system was the catalyst which brought on these more frustrating seasons (IMO) and brought a higher damage league of legends. **

50 Comments

Holdrenator1/15/2020, 10:35:51 PM15 votes

In my opinion, the old mastery system at it's core was simpler; one tree amplified damage almost exclusively through small ad/ap buffs and % stat increases, one increased resistances and % stat increases and the last offered some utility. Contrast to now where the paths allow for damage/healing/utility in the form of small abilities that compound on each other and result in a lack of clarity as to what they are doing for you. This has made the runes more difficult to balance since previously only the champion itself and the abilities of the champion were doing damage, that champion could be buffed/nerfed and the masteries largely left alone. Now however the masteries themselves do damage independent of the champion for the most part which multiplies the difficulty of balance.

I personally preferred the old rune/mastery system- yes it was annoying to have to pay for runes and champions ( getting rid of this might be my favorite change that has ever been made) however the system itself felt more elegant. You got to pick out your stats and adjust them to whatever matchup you were playing. Compared that to now where you are picking the best runes; not the runes that amplify your champion, but the runes that will generate on their own accord an advantage for you.

I am not a fan of the impact of keystone runes on the game; additional clutter that makes champion balance difficult. As I am a Lissandra main I will use her as my example- Release aftershock on Lissandra was pretty overpowered. The rune provided too much to her gameplay. This however resulted in a nerf of the champions itself rather than the rune in order to bring her back in line. Since then aftershock has also been nerfed but Lissandra has been left alone and her win-rate has plummeted. To me this indicated the issue from the start was the stats provided by the rune and not the champion itself. This is one example of a champion being tuned based on a rune of which there are many more I am sure but serves to illustrate my point that in a game where there are so many champions/items/opportunity for skill expression and macro cluttering the game with additional high impact options serves to create an environment of imbalance.

The new rune system I agree is much improved visually and the overall feel of the system a massive design improvement. :)

Your welcome for adding in a wall of text to the comments which I am sure everyone appreciated.

Shiroyashayami1/16/2020, 8:10:54 AM8 votes

No I don't. The old rune system gave me more individual sense. I could take what I needed for a certain match-up. I could prepare 20pages of runes before a match and then take the one that is good against zed and fuck him over. The key masteries were also more intuitive and could be used strategically instead of just making the champion stronger. Ah, also scaling has been completely lost, back then we could chose if we wanted to go for early game or late game and we could just wait for late and destroy people then. It was so much fun back then. People say that now it is more complex but ... no? It is simplier in my opinion and there is also less to choose from so I isn't engaging. You don't even need 10 pages of runes anymore, 2 are enough so how is it more complex?

The thigh guy1/16/2020, 12:22:21 AM7 votes

I still prefer the old rune system. It was more flexible and allowed a Lot more build diversity.

True Garen1/16/2020, 8:17:29 AM7 votes

Runes Reforged was a mistake.

Lovelle1/16/2020, 2:03:20 AM6 votes

I hate how little defensive options there are for scaling into late game with the new runes. For example, the old mastery system had things like %damage reduction from crits and AoE damage, along 3% damage reduction from all sources. You also got %resistances from the start of the game and could get even more from runes. Now you have to wait at least 10 minutes to get any meaningful resistances, and by the time you get a decent amount of health/resistances, you're already getting outscaled by damage-stackers.

All the %based scaling is in the damage trees now, along with a plethora of offensive options that reward kills/takedowns, promoting snowballing. The older system was much more bruiser/tank friendly, especially for the immobile melees.

These days, it doesn't feel like resistances scale at all, which would be fine if defensive stats were better than damage early-mid game, but they aren't. Having to depend on armor/magic resist to scale is a weakness in today's LoL, and the new runes only feel rewarding if you're playing a champion that only needs damage and CDR to function.

GFREEMEN1/15/2020, 10:41:21 PM5 votes

Its a mixed bag. The old Runes were also VERY limited. You ALWAYS took 9 armor runes (only one champ took HP runs over Armor)

You then took 9 of your damage runes.. Then 9 of CDR or Mana Regen depending on the champ.

Yes we COULD take other stuff but it was not optimal so if you didnt you were bad.

The 3 Trees were different. They were like old WoW skill trees and had a mix of all sort of stuff that I do miss.

The Runes Reforged added some nice things but lost some nice things.

Now there is too much damage and sustain in the Runes.

Runes to me should have been more Utility and Defensive but nope Riot went with DAMMMAGE EVERYWHERE

Death by Glamour1/15/2020, 11:04:22 PM5 votes

would be far easier to balance without runes and masteries (old and new) all together.

xelaker1/16/2020, 3:52:47 AM5 votes

I liked the old runes and masteries a million times more than the hyper murder ones we have now.

NF Remilia1/15/2020, 10:13:30 PM5 votes

Old system gave you freedom? I had to play 1 week+ to get a champion from 6300 and then around 1 month to get his runes to max him. To get all runes you had to play months which means you cant buy champions. The old system was so slow and crappy. Im playing since season 1 and as i said if you want to play a champion , you had to play around 1 month so you can make ot viable.

Jamaree1/15/2020, 10:10:55 PM4 votes

I like the buffs the runes give, but miss when you could build certain incredibly fringe niche paths like a full armor page when you go up against full ad teams

overpoweredscrub1/16/2020, 2:39:26 AM4 votes

I played since season 3, and I personally prefer the old rune and mastery system over the new rune system. The new rune system did bring a couple new cool runes aka keystone masteries, but I think that is a big reason for the sudden increase in damage all over the board. Hence why champions like janna can actually do damage and poke hard now when originally they had very low damage in exchange for high utility in their kit.

Darkdemon6531/16/2020, 2:52:30 AM4 votes

I don't mind that 30 runes got condensed into three (though I would increase the number to four or five). What I do mind is the almost complete lack of customization. There is no reason we shouldn't be able to choose any rune for each tier. I very much dislike what happened with masteries. The new masteries are only slightly more interesting than the old masteries (then considering the new masteries came after the old masteries, I wouldn't count it as a positive at all) and we have fewer of them as well as fewer ways to customize with them.

SnowFlame oh yea1/16/2020, 12:06:26 AM3 votes

The old system minus the grind portion would be more ideal than what we have now. Runes now present a balancing nightmare.

Saezio1/16/2020, 1:50:22 AM3 votes

#Biggest Differences

#SCALING

Old runes' (and to a huge extent masteries) impact was mainly noticeable in the early game.

#VS

_ New runes_ scale really hard

#Champion Synergy

Old Runes' effectiveness was more or less the same between every champion.

#VS

New runes sometimes have extraordinary synergy with certain champions, often leading to champions being nerfed because of rune synergy (or >abuse if you will), this was never the case with old runes. Some masteries when strong were nerfed as masteries, champions were almost never >nerfed because of mastery abuse. This comes from the fact old system bonuses were way more straightforward and not too intricate in my opinion.

#Accessibility

Old runes and pages system could be seen as unfair because of how hard it was for a new player to have all runes when playing vs a veteran. But I feel like keeping old system and allowing change during champ select and making runes free would have solved this(compensating veterans somehow obviously). Runes being behind a "playwall" had another side effect which was that it made smurfing a bit lackluster to A LOT of people, going from 20 full rune pages (or even 10) to 2 that you had to complete was a big turnoff for many people. (I think besides the leveling 1-30 this was the only hindrance to smurfing this game has ever had)

#VS

New runes mean a level playing field which is great, they are also changeable during champ select which is a nice QoL. They are 100% smurf friendly.

freeformline1/16/2020, 4:22:49 AM2 votes

I started playing in Preseason 4, and I stopped playing regularly right around the time they started really experimenting with the Runes & Masteries system in Preseason 6, so you can probably guess my opinion. :p

Riot definitely had the right idea when they updated the runes/masteries system to be free and made them completely editable in champion select, but I wish they had kept the runes as direct stat adjustments rather than making them a collection of odd, often conditional powers that can distract from or overshadow champion kits.

ThunderCraft1/16/2020, 2:12:30 AM2 votes

nope i miss my move speed runes for singed.

Pika Fox1/16/2020, 12:50:13 AM2 votes

The new runes are by far better, as they are playstyle changes as opposed to flat stats.

Ontop of that, 99% of the old runes were a trap. Like full crit gangplank for the level 1 Q crit memes? Neat, but you were objectively wrong and weaker than arpen runes.

It is very hard to have a useful rune setup now that is an objectively weaker setup, as long as the setup actually makes sense.

Poking with lux? Comet. Support lane and wanting to poke? Aery. Wanting to burst/all in? Harvest or electrocute both work perfectly fine for that, depending on lane setup and your preferred playstyle.

"How do you want to play this champion" is a far better and more balancable question to ask than "What is the best mathematical option, everything else is trolling"

The Bad Touch1/17/2020, 8:29:24 AM2 votes

It's dogshit.

There are all of 5-6 options.

Woodakoodashooda1/15/2020, 11:07:01 PM2 votes

I didn't read the content of the post because there's no TLDR and I don't enjoy walls of text.

Here's my answer, however.

The current system is an improvement over the old one.

It does not require a heavy investment of virtual currency such as with the old system. We are also able to edit our runes in champ select and do not have to but additional rune pages for just in case scenarios as a result of the creative control allowed. Also, we no longer have critical chance runes, which were used by almost every player for a lotto chance at winning lane early.

Love Anastasia1/16/2020, 12:02:06 AM2 votes

It's not like people used something different in old runes. I think I'm the only one who used things like Critical Damage runes and so

New ones are good. But the mastery part is stupidly overpowered

Naalith1/16/2020, 12:00:20 AM2 votes

As someone who has been playing since season 1, all of my old friends and I absolutely hated the old rune system. It was an obvious IP sink to stop people from getting content they actually want (champions) too quickly by making them non competitive without the best runes. New runes also suck ass. Honestly I'd be happy if the only pregame system was summoner spells. The old system had people optimize the stats and then characters were nerfed so the stats basically became their "base stats" of sorts, the new system synergizes too well and covers too many weaknesses for only certain champions while others are left out. I'd prefer if everything was just balanced via in game items.

2gudaiya1/16/2020, 2:40:08 PM1 votes

the new runes are far more accessible than the old runes. that alone makes them better. also the game has more depth with the new runes as opposed to the old runes, and it's depth that can be matched on the responding end instead of someone having had to have picked their super secret special rune page with the per lvl runes and hybrid damage by sheer chance lol. also only actually tanky champions get to be tanky with the new runes, that's a good thing no matter how people feel about it lol.

Karfuss1/16/2020, 5:07:26 PM1 votes

I'm of two minds.

One, I vehemently despise how runes have come to define champions and playstyles. That should have never happened. Never been allowed to happen, rather. And while we've come a long way since Thunderlord just eclipsed every other option available (at least most things are viable now), the fact that some keystones make or break certain champions... Just look at things like Phase Rush on Ryze, or Aftershock on any melee champion with one hard CC and isn't a duelist that can make use of Conqueror. It's wrong.

BUT... I don't hate how runes are infinitely less boring. The earliest runes were just stats, and you chose whatever would lend itself towards your champion and your playstyle. That was better because you could tailor more towards you. More AP, more mana regen, more AD for early game last hitting or duelling? Whatever you wanted. Though it was boring, it had no real meaningful impact, and you could remove the entire system and virtually nothing would have changed.

XJ999999999999991/16/2020, 7:31:55 PM1 votes

biggest dislikes are some keystones are way too powerful, such as conq and aftershock.

other dislkes is there is no scaling runes anymore. its just garbage. used to be able to get 27 mr @ level 18 or 15% cdr level 18 now you cant. also miss scaling red attack damage

mirAcIe1/17/2020, 8:31:57 AM1 votes

2010 player here old runes should have been made free keystones were a mistake tiny runes (like old masteries) are ok

Skia Asteri1/16/2020, 5:10:19 AM1 votes

{quoted}

The old system allowed for a really specific type of freedom that the new runes don't offer and that is you could choice any stats you wanted. They have an all ad team comp boom armor runes. Another example is LemonNation was known for taking gold generation runes and the new runes give you no gold generation options after klepto being removed.

Most of the micro optimization freedom offered by old runes was minuscule in comparison to the volume of testing needed to verify they are in fact slightly better than the generic pages taken by most champs. As in thousands of games to confirm a sub 1% win rate increase.

Illabethe1/17/2020, 3:18:52 PM1 votes

It's fine imo.

What some of the other posters don't remember:

Thunderlord's Decree was just as powerful as the current Electrocute, and Keystones for Inspiration and Resolve paths were also considerably powerful (tank meta).

The number of choices for small runes right now more or less cover the choices about 80-85% of the community used as runes in Season 1-5. There's a vocal 15% who want stats broken up more, but whatever.

Also, many broken items existed back then that selectively made classes stand out collectively as OP.

Imbetterthanmoe1/17/2020, 3:21:10 PM1 votes

Old runes literally costed money, unless your talking about masteries lmao. I think runes just need to be nerfed thats all, make it so they arent a key factor to if you win or not. I dont think they should be reverted at all

Xonra1/16/2020, 3:57:21 AM1 votes

"Old guards do you like the rune system in the game?"

In a Vacuum, not at all. It feels far too much like the old system WoW used to have with the 3 trees for each class except worse somehow. the old mastery system was the same thing but even worse than that and they simply glued the runes and masteries together into the current system.

I did like the old system to a degree but it was very basic and was just tacking on extra stats, and the fact you had to buy the runes was just a useless hurdle that put runes behind a time sync wall that needed to go.

I can say that yeah, it's better than the old system, but it's a hot mess in a different way. It just adds in sometimes visible and sometimes invisible power that is not exactly subtle at times (conqueror multiple times over). It should add utility and help flesh out characters but despite what Riot claimed that is simply not what it is. It just adds on power and that's literally all it does.

It isn't interesting, it has terrible balance (which was obvious it would when introduced), and it rarely enhances the identity of a champion as much as making one of their abilities stronger or catering far more to one champion than another and so on.

tl;dr I like it better than the old system but I don't like it on the whole regardless. It's like, I'd like my car better with 3 wheels than with 2, but it still doesn't drive all that good.

Bârd1/16/2020, 4:26:11 AM1 votes

The old Runes were a better system than the current runes.

The old Masteries were bad system that felt weak for the most part.

The best possible Pre-game setup system Riot could make would be:

  • The old stat page Runes
  • "Masteries" that are closer to WOW Talents, where each character has three unique trees.
Takatsuki Yayoi1/16/2020, 12:44:21 AM1 votes

i'd honestly prefer to just not have any mastery/rune system at all tbh. i feel like it makes more sense to balance the characters around a lack of that system, while also adding items to make up for some of the loss.

maybe add unique items for every champion that helps them a little bit with whatever their popular runes gave them (like aurelion could get an item that only he can buy that gives him a bit of MS on damage since he wouldn't have phase rush, for example)

Kai Guy1/15/2020, 10:50:00 PM1 votes

My beef with old runes is they served to Gimp F2P players. Rune page and rune costs + inability to adjust page builds resulted in some gold advantages for players who purchased RP. A lot of folks go But you could only buy runes with IP. Yes... And that ate into your champion and rune page $ as a F2P player.

I like the combination of the rune and mastery system. I would like more variety and viable paths. I think its more interesting then stat balls from old runes given how stale those got.

On that same note i'm not wild about when current keystone/sets become the be all end all option.

Cind3rkick1/15/2020, 10:28:21 PM1 votes

Gold 3 (last season) top/adc main, though I have also mained supp/jg at a point of S9.

Im not too sure when I first started playing the game, but it mustve been 6 or 7 years ago, and the old runes were what put me off of league. First time hitting 30 I was a massive noob (iron level) and wanted to try out all the champions, which 3 years on this account still hasnt given me. Then going into ranked I found out about runes. 2 rune pages wasnt enough. Neither were the T1 runes that was actually affordable.

Since I didnt play much, it would take me a couple of days of playing just go get enough IP for one T3 rune, well over 2 weeks for a Quint?(whatever the 3 big ones were). And it really wasnt fun knowing that I had to spend nearly a year playing league just to have the same advantages as the rest of the people on my team. That in combination with the cost of rune pages (since we couldnt change them back then) made me feel cheated that I has to spend so much just to be on an even playing ground. Since I was still learning the game, I didnt know what most champions do, and so one of the best feelings would be getting a new champion to play. But to have a chance with them I had to save up for a years worth of stuff (that doesnt even seem too impressive since it was just pure small numbers).

As for masteries, I cant remember much of them beyond the 3 trees.

With the newer system, it feels much easier and simpler to change it up. My only issue with them is that each keystone can make/break a champion.

Ezreal with Klepto, Conqueror Fiora, Electrocute.

I feel like the old-school keystones did a better job, and some of them should be brought back and the remaining ones balanced around it.

Zullar1/16/2020, 1:22:23 PM1 votes

Where's my low-damage over time AOE mage run for blanketing the whole team in damage and softening them up like the old deathfire? Why do I need so many different single target burst keystones (electrocute, comet, dark harvest) when there's no low-damage over time AOE alternative?