The rune trees are a COMPLETE MESS, no clear structure or theme, nothing makes sense!
So let's actually go through this step by step, the trees and their supposed theme and then each rune and hopefully somebody will give enough shits to discuss the absurdities.
So here are the trees and their descriptions.
PRECISION: IMPROVED ATTACKS AND SUSTAINED DAMAGE "improved attacks"... is too vague The ADC tree that tries really hard to not be the ADC tree.
DOMINATION: BURST DAMAGE AND TARGET ACCESS I can get behind that, probably the tree that makes the most sense if you only judge it by the description, until you see which runes are in it and which runes are not. The assassin tree that tries really hard to not be the assassin tree.
SORCERY: EMPOWERED ABILITIES AND RESSOURCE MANIPULATION I can understand Ressource Manipulation but then there is really only 1 rune for mana... so uhm... "Empowered abilities" is like "improved attacks", it can mean everything or nothing at all and for all I know a lot of abilities ARE ALSO attacks. This is like the mage tree that tries really hard to not be a mage tree.
RESOLVE: DURABILITY AND CROWD CONTROL. Durability is obvious... makes sense, but crowd control? Why? Is it the tank tree? Yes and no. It's the tank tree but it tries really hard to not be the tank tree.
You can kinda see how the only consistent theme in the trees are the inconsistencies and how every tree clearly tells us that Riot didn't even decide what each tree was supposed to do, before they started filling them OR it's like they completely changed their philosophy half way through the development.
and now the biggest absurdity... INSPIRATION: RULE BENDING AND CREATIVE TOOLS So funny... it's not like all runes are creative tools and all runes do bend the rules a certain way. The tree without a theme... Imo it's basically the fancy tree where you put fancy stuff, only problem is... Riot is really struggling to fill this tree.
So just by looking at the structure, the runes that will populate each tree are set up to be messy, but this is ofc me assuming that Riot even had a plan and a clear structure that they sticked to, which is most likely not the case.
Continuing on with the dirty details, looking at each rune, I want to answer a few simple questions. Does this rune fit into the tree? In which tree would it fit better?
PTA I guess has a consistent damage component however it also has an offensive support aspect by making allies deal more damage, which in my opinion is a lot of wasted potential. But since there is no support tree that tries really hard to not be a support a tree, I guess we are leaving it there as the ADC rune that is sometimes also abused by fighters.
Lethal Tempo ok... except there are just too many keystones that are supposed to work with auto attackers: PTA, Hail of Blade, Lethal Tempo and even Conqueror.
Fleet Footwork Why is this in Precision? Maybe because there is no tree for sustain and mobility but only the ADC tree that tries really hard to not be the ADC tree while calling itself "sustained damage"... Ok maybe this is why they added "improved attacks" to the description? Well who knows.... But there also is Resolve... does FF not make you more durable? (also "creative tool" but nvm that, we went over that already LUL)
Conqueror Is a great rune.... Just kidding. I mean how do we even judge this? It's problematic because it's not just sustained damage (Precision), not just with basic attacks, also abilities (sorcery) and it heals you making your more durable (resolve)... It's really bending the rules (inspiration KEKW) of the trees, at least it would bend the rules if the themes were consistent to begin with. Idk man, it's just a complete mess. The good news is: it's not a Domination rune. Of course you can make it balanced like any other rune by completely shitting on the numbers until only very few champions that synergise really well can use it.... but is this really how runes are supposed to work?
Overheal Fits really well into it's tree. Oh wait... it's not in Resolve.
Triumph Would fit into an assassin tree that tries really hard to not be an assassin tree because of risk-reward. Also heals you increasing your durability (Resolve).
Presence of Mind Resource manipulation...obviously Sorcery, but it's in Precision for some reason.
Alacrity I wouldn't know this English word if not for LoL, except I already forgot again what it means. But it fits well with the attack speed.
Tenacity however does not fit at all. Could be resolve because at least it has something to do with crowd control.
Lifeline Resolve
Coup de Grace Domination
Cut Down ok whatever
Last Stand whatever
Domination keystones are all kinda ok (THEMATICALLY OK, please don't give me dumb "but it's too much damage" comments) except for Hail of Blades which is somewhere between Precision and Domination.
Cheap Shot Sorcery or Resolve
Sudden Impact ok, except if dashing gives you penetration... isn't that also an "empowered ability"?
Taste of Blood Resolve (again I think there just has to be a different tree for stuff like healing up, more mana and maybe mobility, but I guess Inspiration has to be the weird and fancy stuff and we really need the current Inspiration, because it's important for reasons...)
Zombie Ward Why? (and why not inspiration? it's fancy as fuck)
Ghost Poro Why? (also really fancy stuff)
Eyeball Collection generic adaptive stat boost that also works by getting assists could be precision as well...whatever. Nice filler rune I guess.
Rav. Hunter Resolve
Ingenious Hunter All champions have active items they can use and they are not only for "target access" or "burst" Could be anywhere in any tree, which makes it the perfect candidate for inspiration. KEKW
Relentless Hunter fair enough
Ultimate Hunter If I remember this correctly, there used to be a similar rune in Sorcery. But even in sorcery it's stupid, because all champion have ultimate abilities. If Sorcery is the "something with abilities" tree then it fits in sorcery.
Aery Was abused for sustained damage (Precision), got nerfed also helps people survive (Resolve) but I guess it's what we call an "empowered ability"... even though it also works with basic attacks. It's kinda funny because I mocked precision for being too vague with the improved attacks, because abilities are also attacks but then Sorcery also empowers basic attacks. I guess that means basic attacks now count as empowered abilities? Let's just move on....
Comet Fits really well into a tree that is supposed to be used by mages. Fit's even better for mages that happen to be blue and also "arcane" like Ryze. I am just not a big fan of seeing something like a Sion with a weird blue ball floating around him. I am sorry. I never liked the visuals of this. It gives me the impression that Riot took a failed Ryze rework and turned one of his spells into a keystone.
Phase Rush is for mobility and resisting slows, so target access (domination), or crowd control (resolve)?
Nullifying Orb Resolve
Manaband ok, but there are 4 resource (mana) manipulating runes and only this one is in sorcery
Nimbus Cloak ok I guess
Transcendence Because mages need cdr and others don't? Oh right, It's not really the mage tree. Let's just say CDR counts as empowering your abilities.
Celerity I have no idea why this is here and not in Domination or Inspiration.
Absolute Focus Basically the inverted Last Stand rune... I guess it gives stats and stats empower abilities, but if you build AD this also empowers your basic attacks...just like Eyeball Collection btw... just filler runes. Don't think about it too much!
Scorch Why is it magic and not adaptive damage? Because Sorcery is still a mage tree, except not really?
I might continue this later, but you kinda get how this works. It gets a bit repetitive
But I wanna address some Inspiration runes
Glacial Augment If Resolve would really be about crowd control it should be there.
Approach Velocity target access -> Domination
Hexflash also target access
Omnistone I DON'T CARE
Cookies/Timewarp Tonic Ressource Manipulation -> Sorcery
My conclusion is that Riot fucked up by making just a pseudo mage, assassin, adc and tank tree. Then of course they had no pseudo fighter tree and also no pseudo support tree.
This is why we have Aery which had a lot of issues and Conqueror and Hail of Blades. And then Inspiration is just a dumpster tree without any theme whatsoever, here you can find either broken stuff that you can't get from others trees or redundant gimmicks that you don't care about.
Riot needs to do trees that are really independent from champion roles with runes that really fit the theme of these trees. So then you can mix and match them until it fits your playstyle and you have an actual choice. If you wanna be really fast and heal a lot. You pick the "speed tree" and the "sustain tree".... something more basic like that. You also can't have keystones that are literally custom made for specific champions because then the whole process of picking your tree becomes redundant. If a champion always uses conqueror or uses conqueror in 95% of all cases then the whole thing might as well be part of the champions kit and not a rune. Let me repeat that. If you literally have to add runes for certain champions then you don't need the rune, at this point you could remove runes completely and just give it to the champions directly and you won't have any cross champion rune balance issues. Why make it so complicated just to have the illusion of choice?
