A Little Love for the New Rune System

Let’s be real for a few minutes here. The boards are swarming with complaints and rails against the new system, pointing out balance issues, things that are broken, things that aren’t fun, etc. What I think people have forgotten, though, is to look at what is actually enjoyable about the new system.

Now, I’m not saying there’s not stuff to criticize, but it’s also pre-season, and the new runes just came out. We went from 60 customizable points of straight stat buffs in runes and masteries, to just 6 situational and more complicated buffs in runes reforged. There is no way in heeeeeellllllllllll this system would be even remotely balanced within even the first month, let alone the first week. So with that said, I want to point out the things I do like about the system.

1. Each Keystone is distinguishable and useful, even late game. Previous masteries keystones were always good all game, but I honestly forgot they were there once double digit levels hit. Now, I recognize in game when my Keystone activates, almost no matter what it is. This means it feels much more like there’s an effect in my decision making, and the decision making my opponents made. I’m now looking more closely at the keystones my opponents chose and watching for them.

2. The chart to show you how the runes are affecting your game. I LOVE this. Not only does this give you real info you can base future builds off of, but you can also see exactly how that 5% whatever is affecting you. Riot has given us more tools that do automatic calculations and number crunching right in game. There’s no wondering exactly how that 8% bonus to healing, shields, etc. is affecting you.

3. I’m actually making situational choices in Runes based on my opponent. Before, my Runes and masteries were almost entirely based around what champion I was playing, and what role I was trying to work towards with my team comp. Now, I actually look at what my opponent is playing, and thing, “Hmm, if they’re doing that, I should probably get that Resolve Mastery.” Or, “I can totally burst these guys down. I’ll put all my focus in damage.” Those pre-game decisions actually matter.

4. I’m no longer trying to create one-size-fits-all rune pages. Runes were never very customizable, let’s be honest. Since you couldn’t adjust them before champ select and had a limited number of pages, especially us lower ELO players, we had to create functional pages that worked for essentially half the champs. This left Runes feeling really unsatisfying, and really felt like that really messy storage closet we all have in our house that we throw stuff in and then forget about, even though it has a ton of stuff we need and use everyday.

If there’s anything else you guys feel like sharing, I’m sure Riot can use the positive feedback to really focus on where to improve the system as they fine-tune the balances and changes in the upcoming patches. Let’s be honest, despite all the vitriol being thrown around, people wouldn’t be posting if they didn’t care about the game, so let’s show Riot that we do care about the game, and we want them to succeed with this.

EDIT: I get that people may disagree with my points, but this thread should remain positive feedback. I'm sure there's some aspects of the system people like, please share those, and you're fine to disagree with individual points, but just saying the whole system is bad is no help to anyone.