I really....really....really miss being able to completely build runes totally around one champion..

MrNuclearPumpkin·Nov 24, 2018·69 votes·15,456 views

Like, in all seriousness there are so many things that the old rune system did that actually would have been extremely helpful in today's meta. Playing a tanky jungler and don't want to be absolutely curve stomped by an extremely god like AD jungler threat who wants to eat your face? (Graves) Just stack a CRAP load of armor so that they can't just free kill you level 2 in your jungle!

You know that Zed is midlane and you know you're absolutely terrible vs him and you just want to focus on CSing and not exploding? Make one rune page specifically for facing Zed, stacking a ton of armor.

Don't want to get absolutely erased by Leblanc's nonsensical damage? Stack a ton of MR runes and build to counter her.

I know that the old rune system had it's flaws and I'm trying not to look back with rose colored glasses, but my goodness... honestly as crazy as things are right now in the meta, I genuinely and absolutely miss the old rune system. It's probably just me, but I miss the old runes...

[sg-soraka]

54 Comments

WoodakoodashoodaNov 24, 201848 votes

No, it's not just you. I just wanted the runes to be made free and tier 3 runes accessible to all players and full rune pages available to all players. Even after I had spent hundreds of thousands of IP on them. I wouldn't have cared had I not been compensated.

AseraanNov 25, 20181 votes

Full armor runes/full attack speed runes/full utility runes......miss them soo much.

I honestly think we could still work this out like im honestly thinking bringing back runes(the real ones) would be a nice step towards a better game again.

XonraNov 24, 201821 votes

The old rune system wasn't the issue, the fact that the runes cost ridiculous amounts of IP was the problem. So Riot instead reworked everything!

...and made it all worse and harder to balance with this mess of new masteries (cause that's what it is, despite being called rune reforged), and the runes are basically"have a few stats" and that's it.

They just made it generic and harder for them to balance (They clearly can't since they changed dark harvest and made it even more cancer).

LycanthossNov 25, 20182 votes

{quoted}

The old rune system wasn't the issue, the fact that the runes cost ridiculous amounts of IP was the problem. So Riot instead reworked everything!

...and made it all worse and harder to balance with this mess of new masteries (cause that's what it is, despite being called rune reforged), and the runes are basically"have a few stats" and that's it.

They just made it generic and harder for them to balance (They clearly can't since they changed dark harvest and made it even more cancer).

I'd rather have this system honestly, I started playing lol in 2013 april and it took me a long time till I had 2 full rune pages and since I spent all my IP on champs I sat on 2 rune pages for literally the whole time until reforged came around. There was 0 diversity in both runes and masteries, I picked either my ap or ad runes (though later I did create a tank rune page but if I remember correctly it had a few T2 runes) then I picked my mastery page for the role I was playing. If you were adc you took fervor, mage ? - decree, I don't even remember tank runes but there was a weaker grasp and that cc shield. All the smaller masteries were basically the same for every champ you played. I never really find these new runes frustrating unless it's grasp on gp or glacial on mid mages.

AseraanNov 25, 20181 votes

I honestly feel sry for you, not for offending but actualy feeling "sorry" because you never had a chnace to try out a niche rune page like 35%bonus attack speed wich i always did on my ninche jungler Who cant even jungle anymore in the current balance of the game and i had succses whit them.

It was the best feeling that i could just set up a rune page just for THAT ONE champ i decided to play next game and could pull the biggest troll games of my life down like the 10 k hp sion jungle.(It wasnt 10 k tho it was 8k max at best but i call him 10 k cuz why notXD)

AseraanNov 25, 20181 votes

{quoted}

I honestly feel sry for you, not for offending but actualy feeling "sorry" because you never had a chnace to try out a niche rune page like 35%bonus attack speed wich i always did on my ninche jungler Who cant even jungle anymore in the current balance of the game and i had succses whit them.

It was the best feeling that i could just set up a rune page just for THAT ONE champ i decided to play next game and could pull the biggest troll games of my life down like the 10 k hp sion jungle.(It wasnt 10 k tho it was 8k max at best but i call him 10 k cuz why notXD) And i did win whit him noone could kill meXD.

Genghis KhatNov 24, 201810 votes

Only flaw the only rune system had was the fact a tier 3 rune cost 2k IP (some thing around that) If they had just made them free and compensated the people who bought them(heck im sure people would just want that system back even without compensation), that system would be more than fine...

HügöNov 24, 20187 votes

But riot said runes reforged will give me way more choices for my own epic playstyles. They will never lie to me....

ThefrostyvikingNov 24, 20184 votes

{quoted}

But riot said runes reforged will give me way more choices for my own epic playstyles. They will never lie to me....

I mean to a degree its true though.

Before almost any and all mages+assassins would roll thunderlords decree, a rare few went deathfire grasp.

Now we have electrolute, dark harvest, comet, aery, glacial augment, phase rush, unsealed spellbook and appearing here and there,

As far as keystones go the diversity did skyrocket.

ZeromatsuNov 25, 20184 votes

There were no keystone masteries in the old runes system... One of the reasons it was healthier. If a champion was strong it was because of it's kit, not because a certain keystone was beyond broken on it.

Thunderlords decree was the first iteration of this bullshit. Just bring back old runes and old masterys (those that only gave some passive stats where you could invest 30 points how you wanted)

ThefrostyvikingNov 25, 20182 votes

{quoted}

There were no keystone masteries in the old runes system... One of the reasons it was healthier. If a champion was strong it was because of it's kit, not because a certain keystone was beyond broken on it.

Thunderlords decree was the first iteration of this bullshit. Just bring back old runes and old masterys (those that only gave some passive stats where you could invest 30 points how you wanted)

Dude you are talking the old old runes, we have already switched systems at least twice :P

But the reason i personally didnt like the first mastery/rune system was that it was just stats, much like the rune pages and it was filled with pitfalls and bad choices too.

Everyone had their cookie cutter pages and absolutely no variety existed, it was much the same for the second system where every single assassin and almost every single mage would roll thunderlord and a handful would go deathfire grasp.

Now we have electrolute, dark harvest, comet, aery, glacial agument, unsealed spellbook and even aftershock appearing in the midlane, diversity does exist for runes at least.

As for champion vs rune balance...... its true that champions have been broken by having too much synergy with one rune or another, however many cases where a champ remains standing for too long now as compared to before is just that riot refuses to nerf stuff x)

Like take malzahar for instance, he was pretty much insanely broken right from the update in the mage rework, but after being hit with the nerfhammer 6 times he was still going strong due to poor design but after that riot just didnt touch him at all.

And he ended up dominating in all of season 7 as well.

In the past things got nerfed much quicker if i recall, we didnt have something like that with malz sitting at the top for an entire season happening.

FlitcheeNov 25, 20182 votes

That's the thing, nobody wants these keystones. You ever sit there and wonder... hmmm how'd all of a sudden this character be able to melt my face? just go ahead and point to this abomination of runes. I have no idea why someone thought that the best solution was to make a combination of free damage boosters, that aren't minuscule (i.e the last point in offense tree of old) like I'm talking season 2 here, was 3%... 3% across the board increase to for easy maths sake an extra 100 damage into your rotation (obviously its WAY higher than just 100 damage) JUST for casting abilities that you would cast anyways. Nothing different in play before hand, you still cast those abilities, they're just 3% stronger, instead, you get an extra huge amount of damage just off the keystone alone, never mind things like scorch, or coup de grace or things like that.. the amount of free damage just front loaded into the game via this rune setup is just astronomical, no wonder damage is so much higher.

Talking about champion synergy with this rune or that rune will be there regardless of the system, even the old mastery pages, had issues, look at cho'gath back in the day, there was a mastery that gave health and mana on minion kill, and combine that with his passive, he had insane sustain.

The point is, no system is going to be perfect, so you need to choose the lesser of the evils, and here we are, we have diversity... at the cost of wanting to blow your brains out because you get killed by anybody seemingly in less than 2 seconds. The game has become who blows their load first, instead of who outsmarts and out wits their opponent.

ThefrostyvikingNov 26, 20181 votes

{quoted}

That's the thing, nobody wants these keystones. You ever sit there and wonder... hmmm how'd all of a sudden this character be able to melt my face? just go ahead and point to this abomination of runes. I have no idea why someone thought that the best solution was to make a combination of free damage boosters, that aren't minuscule (i.e the last point in offense tree of old) like I'm talking season 2 here, was 3%... 3% across the board increase to for easy maths sake an extra 100 damage into your rotation (obviously its WAY higher than just 100 damage) JUST for casting abilities that you would cast anyways. Nothing different in play before hand, you still cast those abilities, they're just 3% stronger, instead, you get an extra huge amount of damage just off the keystone alone, never mind things like scorch, or coup de grace or things like that.. the amount of free damage just front loaded into the game via this rune setup is just astronomical, no wonder damage is so much higher.

But most champs arent just suddenly able to melt people, the ones who are usually got buffed way too hard or utilize some item to the same effect.

And damage isnt really higher by much, rather its just more common and easily accessible.

When i started in season 3 you died instantly if talon got on you, if fizz,LB, Zed, Xin zhao, kassadin or Diana got on you, but LB especially was infamous for bending people over and ramming their asses with a pole in lane for the slightest mistake.

Rengar, oh rengar, or Syndra, veigar or Ahri too.

I cant tell the difference between dying in 0,8 seconds and dying in 0,5, feels much the same to me.

The point is, no system is going to be perfect, so you need to choose the lesser of the evils, and here we are, we have diversity... at the cost of wanting to blow your brains out because you get killed by anybody seemingly in less than 2 seconds. The game has become who blows their load first, instead of who outsmarts and out wits their opponent.

Game was never about outsmarting the opponent, only difference is how bulky the tanks were and how useless the supports were.

Well admittedly marksman DPS has risen though.

You see i distinctly remember stuff like dying instantly because a veig got to farm for 5 minutes then hit me with a ult that scaled of my AP as a mage, or just brutalized 5 minutes after that once he got enough stuff.

Or dying instantly to a syndra combo once she had ult, much the same.

Ahri was also able to instantly kill a squishy target, especially once she hit deathfire grasp, hells i recall malzahar players building the damn item and actually straight up melting tanks with 3-4k health.

What the game was about before was discovering and adapting play styles that others hadnt found yet to catch them off, however now that almost 6 years have passed people have somehow learnt and even written down most of those so surprise parties have lost their effect.

But seriously how skillful is it to just blitz the enemy team with the old seju ult or malp ulti and collapse on them?

And as for tanks, before we had stuff like say rammus, rammus had so much armor that he was nearly unkillable for any AD champ at any time and the only way to deal with him was a DPS mage or just farming for 30 minutes until your marksman had items, others like maokai were pretty similar.

It was pretty stale.

Now there is stuff like stoneplate and aftershock that the tanks have to actually be mindful off and use properly to function instead of "charge charge charge!".

Supports? What supports? You mean those guys constantly down 5 levels and barely at 2-3 items when everyone else had 4-5?

Biggest differences in league is the fact that supports now actually play a super active role( which role depends on the support) tanks cant just brainlessly charge in and marksmen dont need 30-40 minutes to join the match.

But that doesnt mean that now is perfect however, some runes are indeed overtuned or poorly designed, others are weak.

But they do offer new things and new styles, like a master tier Garen in NA managed to hit masters exactly because of the new runes letting him adapt better to different matchups and teams.

Before that playing garen above gold was a joke.

AmelieaNov 24, 20185 votes

The old rune system was a double edged sword in my opinion.

It definitly felt more customizable, but that was also its biggest weakness. It lured you into making these super specialized pages, like you said 30 armor against Zed, but in the end these just werent as effective as the cookie cutter ones.

That leads to the creative players setting themselves behind before the game even starts.

Worst thing is that you would not even know that it was your runepage thats negativly impacting you because you need a super large sample size of games across different pages to feel a difference.

Thats were keystones come from. They have bigger, more obvious impact that you can easily identify and compare. You can usually tell from a single game if a keystone makes sense for your champion.

Midg3tNov 24, 20184 votes

{quoted}

The old rune system was a double edged sword in my opinion.

It definitly felt more customizable, but that was also its biggest weakness. It lured you into making these super specialized pages, like you said 30 armor against Zed, but in the end these just werent as effective as the cookie cutter ones.

If that rune page helped you in that matchup, then it's effective.

That leads to the creative players setting themselves behind before the game even starts.

If they're stupid, then yes.

Worst thing is that you would not even know that it was your runepage thats negativly impacting you because you need a super large sample size of games across different pages to feel a difference.

If you knew what do you want from your rune setup, then you didn't need 'a large sample of games'.

Thats were keystones come from. They have bigger, more obvious impact that you can easily identify and compare. You can usually tell from a single game if a keystone makes sense for your champion.

And this results in some keystones being a must-take, or keystones being useless, niche pick at best.

Old system had issues (can't tell which tbh) but this system isn't any better.

AmelieaNov 24, 20184 votes

But thats the problem you can not really tell if it was the rune page that helped you. And its really hard to compare them with the small advantages they give.

Did the 10% attack speed just secure you the kill or was it just the opponent misplaying? Would you have survived another situation if you had 8 more armor?

You can only evaluate these pages over a lot of games, or you take pages which are approved by a lot of people, which was in fact what people did back in the day

And the thing is keystones actually are much more varied. Look at some champions on probuilds and most of them will have atleast 3 different keystones. For example Riven players use a whopping 6 different Keystones right now, with additional variance in the lesser slots.

Right now the system is objectivly better, customization in general is just problematic because there will always be options that are stronger than others. The reason why keystones got such a bad rep is because they are much easier to break.

Of course no one complains about the old runes being overpowered because like the mastery system they were barely noticable and much less varied.

Midg3tNov 24, 20181 votes

{quoted}

But thats the problem you can not really tell if it was the rune page that helped you. And its really hard to compare them with the small advantages they give.

Did the 10% attack speed just secure you the kill or was it just the opponent misplaying? Would you have survived another situation if you had 8 more armor?

When you built a champ-specific rune page, you didnt built it 4 specific situation, but more around your champ and/or matchup. The example you provided were nonexistent reasons.

You can only evaluate these pages over a lot of games, or you take pages which are approved by a lot of people, which was in fact what people did back in the day

Cuz people are lazy fucks.

And the thing is keystones actually are much more varied. Look at some champions on probuilds and most of them will have atleast 3 different keystones. For example Riven players use a whopping 6 different Keystones right now, with additional variance in the lesser slots.

Good thing you provided proof to back up your claims...oh wait..

Right now the system is objectivly better, customization in general is just problematic because there will always be options that are stronger than others. The reason why keystones got such a bad rep is because they are much easier to break.

And that's an issue.

Of course no one complains about the old runes being overpowered because like the mastery system they were barely noticable and much less varied.

Which was a good thing. And much less varied? Nani the fuck??

Automated RivenNov 25, 20181 votes

Most riven's run either conqueror or spellbook. There is some testing of kleptomaniac now but tbh I don't think it's that good.

Electrocute is a mid only rune. (or vs troll top picks.) Curious as to what other runes you think riven takes.

And on that subject. Riven took 5 runes from the last set of keystone's. (Grasp, CoTC, tlords, stormrazer surge and Ferver) So her diversity has always been good and is now less diverse then it used to be. She used to take 5 of 9 and now she takes 6 of 17.

Edit I forgot Aftershock. Some riven's do run Aftershock extremely rarely. I run it more then others and even I don't run it often.

Flawless FetusNov 25, 20181 votes

Were you around for the old system? You talk like you weren't. Lol.

TSM Bad HorseNov 24, 20185 votes

I miss being able to start with 25% cdr on things like gp, Nasus, riven. Runes give you 5 now, if you go out of your way on 1 tree you can get 10 at lvl 11, and another new option gives you 10 at level 18. Come on guys

Rathar DashingNov 25, 20181 votes

At least now we can get item CDR on champs. That's pretty cool.

WafflezNov 24, 20184 votes

Yep

Quil EvrythingNov 24, 20182 votes

well at least the latest mods let you stack on 10 armor reguardless of which keystone combo you take.

(personaly, I miss the full attack speed xin buildthough ;)

ŚhunpoNov 24, 201814 votes

Cries in 42% bonus attack speed Yi

gr8 m8 25Nov 25, 20181 votes

{quoted}

Cries in 42% bonus attack speed Yi

Cries in 1% Crit Chance

SõnaNov 25, 20182 votes

I have been crying for old rune system revert since previous last year's preseason, yet people did not give a damn and wanted the new rune system because of curiosity.

And now, numbers of you start missing old rune system, where were you guys when old us wanted the supports from you guys.

DeracadaVenomNov 24, 20181 votes

I wasnt around when the old runes were in play, runes reforged is all i know. But TBH runes reforged has its flaws. I play a lot of Zoe lately and i like to take sudden impact as a secondary rune. But at the same time, my autos are shit and I might need demolish for the late game. Dunno if thats relevant because once again i AM a noob. I made my account i between the release of the high noon skins and nunus rework lol.

Rathar DashingNov 25, 20181 votes

If you're having trouble with towers, build Lich Bane. Send out your Q right before you auto the tower, then reactivate it soon after for two easy procs, plus some CS if it's there. It does huge amounts of damage to towers. Though, you generally don't want to be pushing a tower all by yourself as Zoe, your job is more to push waves and kill squishies.

Flawless FetusNov 25, 20181 votes

Runes reforged totally omitted what used to be runes and renamed what used to be masteries to runes. Lol. The old system was, essentially, this system with the ability to spec out any combination of base stats you wanted. You probably dgaf, but if you go watch some videos on the old rune/mastery system, you'll get nostalgic for shit you never even got to experience. Lol.

FéliXXXNov 25, 20181 votes

also bring lethality or armor pen runes back ty

jocomotionNov 25, 20181 votes

Armor, Armor, Conditioning, boneplating, Aftershock. If you really want to make Zed angry get the free stopwatch.

If you don’t want aftershock you can now still get free Armor with whatever Keystone you want, AND still take conditioning with bone plating secondary for defense.

This is something I’ve never understood, yes, old times gave you more choices but the choices only boiled down to base stats. I’m glad Riot sacrificed them to give us what is essentially buffed up masteries. Now I actually feel like the runes I choose impact my playstyle and build rather than just being a free stat-stick.

gileskdNov 25, 20181 votes

I miss those rune pages

im going up against several other ap opponents, im gonna grab my full scaling magic resist rune page im going up against talon and a full ad team (besides support) grab my full scaling armor rune page or the full scaling mane rune page I had for ryze and singed.

I had more but I cant remember them right now.

edit: scaling cdr runes gold per 5/10? runes

VaelixNov 25, 20181 votes

Ah back in the day where I could run .45% Crit Damage runes and an IE (.50%) raising Yi's alpha crit ad ratio to 2.95 to play him mid lane, similar to how old AP Yi functioned..

Back when runes / masteries actually let you have interesting diversity in your options, regardless how off meta it was.

I too miss some of the totally random combinations of unique stats that old runes offered.

PopperofskiNov 25, 20181 votes

i miss taking 1% crit chance on early game champs just to win trades by pure RNG

One Quacky BoiNov 25, 20181 votes

Back when building five IE had potential to be the most hilarious thing ever due to the sheer numbers on your crits. Good times.

MikeJ122ONov 25, 20181 votes

The 3 bonus stats in the preseason rune update made me think of the old rune system. You could honestly build anything with it. The runes we have now could maybe be like the old mastery page?

I just want to select any bonus stats.

EcophileNov 25, 20181 votes

I like the new system, having only one feature of pregame settings feels nicer and more harmonious.

BonipherusNov 25, 20181 votes

We need a rune system based around each individual champion like the augment system from onslaught instead of our current cookie-cutter system which means nerfing a rune for its abusers means everyone else using it suffers by proxy

Cuoco DiavoloNov 25, 20181 votes

I miss my 4.5% ms udyr and rammus in the jg plus a lot of other fun rune page set ups I had hell because the pages were so fun I had 8 different set ups

LovelleNov 25, 20181 votes

Runes feel a bit better ever since they added the extra armor, mr, cdr options, but damage still feels way too high early-mid game. It's very hard to keep up with the frontloaded damage as someone like Trundle, who revolves around doing sustained damage and is generally weak to burst for the majority of the game.

PaladinNONov 25, 20181 votes

On rare occasions, I get the message "Your rune has been replaced with..." - and all I think about is "there was a time when I actually could choose what runes I wanted."

There is no information about which champions cannot use which runes (why is this even a thing?), or what those runes will be replaced with.

For me it has gone so far, I no longer care what runes I use. I used to have 20 filled rune pages (and wanted more) and frequently used almost all of them (am an ARAM OTP) - I still got 20 pages, but now I use only 3 of them: AD, AP and tank.

Beacon AcademyNov 25, 20181 votes

Like legit... bring back the old rune system and make them 1 BE, so as to avoid cluttering.

And make it so you have access to the full rune page at level one ffs

A quality of life change that Riot could have done to make people happy instead of all the new unnecessary shit they threw into the game.

Its that simple

TeCoolMageNov 25, 20181 votes

The thing is I like stuff from both systems - I feel the current system can cater more to a specific playstyle I want (and I think current runes give decent choice with electrocute, comet, dh and spellbook all being viable for each champ I play) because it has conditional bonuses and scales to late game, while I liked the old system had more options for me even if the individual runes didn’t help me particularly, and were next to useless later on. Masteries I just hated because they just were too specific for too little power.

riot should switch to a bag runes system rather than the current mastery tree system

There are strong runes that give stats, or conditional abilties (that are stronger in exchange when in the relevant situation), and you can pick them as you want without being limited by tree or type. If need be add a soft cap for categories like damage, defense, utility (reduce the effectiveness past a certain amount) to emulate old runes giving you armour yellows (1) for example but if you really wanted you could go armour reds (0.9) and you’d be less efficient but commit to tons of armour. Maybe to add variety create a second soft cap that discourages picking the same rune as too much well.

So examples would be:

Format: Name - type - (base stat/if you have either more than 2 of this rune or if you have more than 4 of the same type/if you have both more than 4 of the same type and 2 of this rune)

Flat Armour - Defense - +3/2/1.5 armour Damage near ally turrets - offense - +4/2.5/1 Adaptive force when in range of an ally turret (including fallen turrets) Tenacity hunter - defense - gain 2%/1%/0.25% tenacity + an additional 2%/1.25%/0.4% per stack (see the first row in domination tree)

(ok at this point I’m just going off on a tangent and this will never happen so be warned)

Heck we can take it further and each rune is a core (stat, and it lists 5 values weak to strong, like scaling ability power for example, but it can be complicated like ~2% AP on autos for all you old spellblade lovers who want to last hit a bit better under tower as a 0.1 AS 1 AD mage xd or maybe attack speed bonuses increased by ~4% for those 90 minute game adc players) and a frame (a use case, can just be be stat with no bells and whistles, and whether or when they use what strength level, like the legends in precision, hunter in domination, waterwalk river only, manaflow increase on spell hit, etc)

it could be unbalanced if the super late game runes like % AP and crit damage are tuned badly - the maximum strength should be lower and the minimum strength should be higher compared to early game runes like flat armour (because runes like legend % AP are practically 0 downside compared to unconditional % AP which is useless early regardless, meanwhile the opposite applies for flat AP). Scaling early game stats would be mid game and would be decently spread between the weakest and strongest

I don’t know - just think it’s be fun to some days go lissandra + armour per nearby enemy (rip not only does she get a new passive, she takes wukong’s as well) + temporary AP and CDR on kill, then the next go xerath that gains mana regen per ability hit up to a cap, then go xerath that gains CDR near near enemy towers the day after

but it’d never happen, too complicated and I’m probably biased as a player who likes customisation more than I’d like to admit

CatnipTerminatorNov 25, 20181 votes

I miss the gold per 10 runes tbh :(

CarteeeerNov 25, 20181 votes

I think new runes are pretty good and also old runes (season 6 runes) were pretty good, I don't mind either one but personally I just prefer the cleaner feel of new runes and it's probably easier to balance new runes as well (Even though riot isnt exactly doing a good job at it :P)

KazekibaNov 25, 20181 votes

Thats why they let you take armor/mr runes now??

forrestoNov 26, 20181 votes

I don't see why they don't just have old runes + new rune system as masteries. What matters is that everyone has equal access to free stats, not how much extra stats exist.