My Issues with current Runes

Hello! I'm 1pwny, some random dude who likes to think he's pretty smart. My biggest claim to fame in regards to game design is listening to Mark Rosewater's podcasts on the topic. (He's the head designer for Magic the Gathering.) I know that the people who make Magic can't take unsolicited designs for fear of being sued (or something?), so I've separated this post into two parts - Philosophy and Changes. If you're a Riot employee and not allowed to read player designs, or you're a lazy ass that can't be bothered too, I'd appreciate it if you at least read the Philosophy section. Should spark some discussion at the very least.

Philosophy

Brief Overview: In my opinion, Keystones should have two purposes. For new players, they should help you define your champion's playstyle. For more experienced players, they should help you express your skill. Other runes can have smaller, less important effects, but you should never pick a rune and play the exact same way you would have before.

New Players and Keystones: There are some great Keystones out there. Lethal Tempo, for example, is awesome. If I'm a new player, testing out Kog'Maw, and my friend tells me to go Lethal Tempo, reading it will actually give me an idea about how to play my champion. I attack quickly, and it'll help me attack even faster. Glacial Augment, Comet, Spellbook, and Aery all kinda suck in this regard; they don't really give you a directive in how to play your champion - they just give you boosts.

Experienced Players and Keystones: Keystones should also provide some level of skill expression for more experienced players. Whether it's using Spellbook at all, managing your up/downtime with Lethal Tempo, or weaving spells and autos for Klepto, many keystones are more effective if you know what you're doing - this isn't always the case though. Electrocute, Aery, and Comet don't do great by this standard.

Other runes: Minor runes don't have to be strong or promote a playstyle, but they do have to have an identity. There are plenty of examples - Cut Down is the "kill tanks" rune, Ultimate Hunter is the "I have a busted ult and I want to use it" rune, Manaflow Band is the "I need mana" rune, Demolish is the "lel turrets in 2k18" rune, and Approach Velocity is the "get over here!" rune. On the other hand, runes like Scorch, Cosmic Insight, Celerity, and the entire top row of the Domination tree all have very vague identities - at least, in my opinion. If you disagree, upvote the post, leave a comment, and we'll be able to talk about it for days on the front page.

Now that we can all understand where I'm coming from (again, feel free to comment if you agree/disagree), let's talk about stuff I'd change. Keep in mind that I came up with this all very quickly, so I'm definitely missing things that I should change, and changing things that I shouldn't. Hopefully, knowing my philosophy, at the very least you'll be able to see where I'm coming from.

Changes I'd Recommend (Full Theorycrafting Below)

Precision

Keystones:

• Press the Attack - Removed, reimagined as Reveal Weakness in Inspiration.
• Fleet Footwork - Moved to 1st row of minor runes, heal removed
• Lethal Tempo - unchanged
• Conqueror - After triggering, when duration is over, goes on 10 second cooldown.
• [New] Killer's Blood - Deal 10% more damage to low-health enemy champions. After getting a kill, gain 25 gold, and recover 15% Health and Mana over the next 5 seconds (3%/second).

1st Row:

• Triumph - Reworked into Killer's Blood.
• Presence of Mind - Reworked into Killer's Blood.
• Fleet Footwork - Moving and attacking builds Energy. After 100 stacks, your next attack is Energized. Energized attacks give you 20% movement speed for 1 second.
• [New] Calming Footwork - Basic attacks restore 1% of your missing mana.
• Overheal - unchanged

3rd Row:

• Coup de Grace - Reworked into Killer's Blood
• [New] Sniper (Ranged only) - Deal 3% increased damage on basic attacks on enemies within 50 units of your maximum range.

Domination

Keystones:

• Electrocute - Damage decreased to 30-200 (+40% AD) (+20% AP), cooldown still 50-25 seconds. Hitting with additional abilities deals an additional 10 (+5% AD)(+5% AP) damage and lengthens the cooldown by 10 seconds per extra hit, max 7 hits total.
• Predator - unchanged
• Dark Harvest - unchanged
• Hail of Blades - unchanged

1st Row:

• Cheap Shot - Now, hitting an enemy champion with impaired movement further slows them by 20% and grounds them for 1 second. 10-4 second cooldown.
• Taste of Blood - Now, killing lane minions heals you for 3-7 health

2nd Row:

• Ghost Poro - Poro limit increased to three, damage removed
• Zombie Ward - Extra damage after ward kill removed, gain 5-20 adaptive force while the Zombie Ward is in enemy territory.

Sorcery

Keystones:

• Summon Aery
• Arcane Comet
• [New] Spellslinger's Safeguard - Hitting an enemy with 3 or more seperate spells gives you a 50-220 (+0.3 AD)(+0.3 AP) shield which lasts for 2 seconds. Hitting a champ with another ability refreshes the shield's duration, but not it's health. 60-30s cooldown.
• [New] Explosive Rune - Damaging enemies with a basic attack marks them with an explosive rune for 5 seconds. Your spells detonate the rune, dealing 25-125 (+0.2 AD) (+0.3 AP) adaptive damage (once the rune is detonated, it disappears). 30-15s cooldown.
• Phase Rush - unchanged

1st Row:

• Nimbus Cloak Water Walking - Switched places.

2nd Row:

• Celerity - No longer gives bonus movement speed. Now gives 10 AD/15 AP per 75 movement speed.

3rd Row:

• Water Walking Nimbus Cloak - Switched places.
• Scorch
• [New] Glacial Comet - Damaging an enemy champion with an ability shoots a nondamaging comet at their location, creating an icy field that slows by 30% for 3 seconds. 25-8 second cooldown.

Resolve

Keystones:

• Grasp - No longer permanently increases health. Damage/Healing increased from 4%/2% of your max health to 5%/2.5%
• Aftershock - unchanged
• Guardian - unchanged

1st Row:

• Bone Plating - After 4 seconds of not being hit by a champion, the next time you would be hit, you take 26-60 reduced damage.

2nd Row:

• Conditioning - Gives +5 Armor/MR immediately. After 10 minutes, gives +8% Armor/MR permanently.

Inspiration

Keystones:

• Glacial Augment
• Unsealed Spellbook
• Kleptomancy - Gold reward increased, random consumables removed
• [New?] Reveal Weakness - Hitting a champion with 4 consecutive basic attacks or abilities makes them vulnerable, taking 10-14% increased damage from all sources for 6 seconds.
• [New] Generalist Principles - Gain 5% CDR, Max CDR, Summoner Spell CDR, Item CDR, 50% Base Health/Mana Regen, 5 Armor/MR

1st Row:

• Hextech Flashtraption - Moved to 3rd Row.
• [New] All-Seeing - Start the game with a Zombie ward in your inventory. At 10 minutes, and every 5 minutes afterwards, get a free Control ward.

3rd Row:

• Hextech Flashtraption - Now here.
• Cosmic Insight - Absorbed into Generalist Principles

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Theorycrafting Behind All the Changes

• Press the Attack is strangely positioned as an offensive option. If you mean to do damage all by yourself, then Electrocute or Lethal Tempo are better options, depending on if you want the damage burst or the damage amp. However, if you take it to let other people do damage via the vulnerability, then it's strangely positioned as a Precision rune. Therefore, I moved it to Inspiration, let spells trigger procs, increased the number of hits you need, and took away the little burst of damage you get by making them vulnerable - this should make it a better option for aggressive supports that don't want to go Precision.

• Fleet Footwork has always struggled with identity problems; it's a rune meant to help you get through lane, but when it does that well, it's too strong. It doesn't really promote a playstyle beyond "laning phase is good", so it's not a great keystone; therefore I removed the heal and took it to a regular rune spot. If you really want to survive lane that badly, go Grasp.

• Conqueror is already great at doing what it's supposed to, but needs more downtime to promote playing around it, rather than just being a thing you get all the time. Otherwise it would just be a bruiser statstick.

• Killer's Blood is something I came up with for a couple of reasons. I like it because it does, in fact, promote a playstyle - popping off. If you're taking this rune, you'll be playing Essence Reaver Lucian, and either you'll have a great youtube video or you'll die in a corner. Regardless, Triumph almost always felt like an auto-pick to me when going Precision, and it wasn't that healthy for modes like ARAM as a regular rune. I dunno, what do you guys think?

• Calming Footwork was created to fill a niche I left as I was clearing out runes I didn't like. The row it's in has Overheal and the new Fleet Footwork - they let you heal through lane and dodge through lane, respectively. Therefore, I wanted to create a rune that would compete for real-estate with two lane-based runes; I decided to put the Essence Reaver passive on something outside what is now a pretty meme-y item. It shouldn't just make mana management trivial though, so numbers would be adjusted with testing.

• Sniper was similarly created to fill a niche (you'll see a pattern). Cut Down and Last Stand are both about doing damage, as was Coup de Grace before I moved it into Killer's Blood. So, I knew I needed to put in another attractive damage option, otherwise you'd always take Cut Down. Sniper should help finish off fleeing foes, and maybe even trade in lane if you're savvy enough. As another recurring theme, the numbers would be adjusted with testing.

• Electrocute is interesting. Personally, I'd rather it be stronger and up less often than weaker and up more often. Also, I think that it could use some more skill expression - Zed hitting you with a full combo and all three shiruken should be rewarded more than Zed missing half his stuff but still getting the proc; scaling damage/cooldown based on number of hits (>= 3) sounds like a good way to do that. I just threw together some idea of damage based on the middle ground between Electrocute and Thunderlord's - this gets the same damage as current Electrocute at 5 hits, by the way. This one's numbers probably need major testing.

• I was actually going to switch Nimbus Cloak and Predator, but then I realized that it would leave you with no keystone until level 6, which didn't sound like great fun. That being said, I do believe that Nimbus Cloak doing a Spellbinder impression on ult cast would be a more interesting keystone than Predator, but that might just be me - tell me what you think.

• Cheap Shot isn't really in a great place right now. On some champs, it's a repeatable easy source of true damage procs. However, that's more suited for a Precision or Sorcery rune than Domination. By grounding your target instead, Cheap Shot gives the soon-to-be-assassinated more time to Barrier/Heal/whatever, while still giving the assassin a greater opportunity to secure his kill. Numbers might need changing - maybe up the time for the slow/ground?

• Taste of Blood is pretty stupid. Every so often you hit someone and heal? There's no way to play around that, either as the person who needs to heal or their opponent. Tying the healing to minions does a couple of things. First, I kept the heal/minute approximately equal (check the math). Healing off minions encourages good CSing, and gives the opponent a better way to counter it - zoning. Also, it's more consistent, and the player gets more control, both of which are good in my books.

• Ghost Poro giving damage is pretty stupid, because it's this little not-even-a-unit thing that's so easy to miss. Rather than that, giving it extra utility sounds better to me.

• Zombie Ward, on the other hand, requires killing one of their wards - so if they're paying attention, they should always be able to figure out where your ward is. This means that it's much better suited to giving you the damage boost than Ghost Poro is. It provides counterplay, and that counterplay is to care about vision! Teaching moment!

• Aery and Comet were removed because they neither promote a playstyle nor skill expression. Sure, poke mages need a keystone, but these aren't it. Exploding Rune is my rough draft of a better poke Keystone. More info in it's bullet.

• Spellslinger's Safeguard is kind-of the anti-Electrocute. It won't give mages any more damage, but it'll make them a bit less afriad to go in and get some hits, without being anything too crazy. Ryze shouldn't be taking Aftershock, so we obviously have to give the spell-slinger's something. Notably, unlike Electrocute, this only triggers off spellcasts. Numbers up for debate, based on playtesting.

• Exploding Rune is my first shot at a poke mage keystone. The requirement to attack first, before the spell, means that it's probably better situated for ranged attackers rather than melee - which is perfect, because Aatrox should not be taking Comet. I tried to scale the AD/AP ratios to better support actual poke mages than any unseen abusers, but even as I'm writing this I'm thinking about Kassadin. Again, this is just a first look - it could obviously use some work. If any of you have any better ideas, or any other suggestions, I'm all ears. The numbers, by the way, might require some experimentation.

• I wanted to rearrange some of the minor runes in the Sorcery tree. I like that Manaflow and Nullifying Orb are both on the same row, as they're both lane-based runes, in different ways. I wanted to make the choice to take them a little more up-in-the-air. If you wanted to be mean, you'd put Gathering Storm with them (lane/lategame trade-off). I'm nice, so I put Waterwalking there instead (lane/jungle trade-off is generally clear in any given game). Also, this lets you still take Phase Rush/Nimbus/Celerity/Waterwalking if you so choose.

• Celerity, by the way, is a little abstract at the moment. I think it would benefit greatly from a more unique identity, so I removed the bonus MS, upped the ratio, and gated the bonuses behind MS blocks. This means that some champs that get a lot of movespeed will love it, while others that don't won't take it - which is where I think it's always been trying to be.

• Scorch was removed because it doesn't even pretend to be interesting like Absolute Focus. It's just literally "moar dameg lul"

• Glacial Comet replaces Scorch, and lives on in the memory of Comet and Glacial Augment. I've also thought about it just being a single-target slow (Glacial Aery?), but decided to put this out for now. Tell me what you think.

• Grasp needs some more work. In my opinion, Grasp is a great lanebully rune. It does everything you want; over time, in combat, it deals damage to the enemy champ and heals you. That being said, it's quite good on Tanks, too - and that's not healthy. Therefore, we should take out the lategame health boost it gives for tanks (and make it thereby less useful) and put back some power where it's better suited.

• Bone Plating on the other hand, isn't great. What does it really protect against? Early game poke waits for it to drop, and late game damage goes right through it. I guess early game all-ins? You usually die to those anyways. I think that we should really cement it's role as an anti-poke rune. Therefore, it'll block a significant portion of the first damage you take every so often - sorry Jayce. On the other hand, if you even go for 2 or 3 hit trades, it'll do less work than before. Numbers... well, you get it.

• Conditioning is now giving it's Armor/MR right away. This should help compensate tanks for the Bone Plating/Grasp changes without being too major.

• Kleptomancy has just about fallen into the hands of Ezreal, the occasional GP, and Trick2G. I want to make Klepto great again - and while no support will ever be Ezreal, I think they'd all appreciate some more mola. Most poking supports already kind-of weave in autos for extra gold from Spellthief's, so removing the RNG from Klepto to add in more Gold should hopefully widen it's userbase.

• Glacial Augment again doesn't really promote a playstyle. I think giving slows via runes is good (I added in a few of those), but I don't think it's worth a Keystone slot. Thus, I removed it.

• Unsealed Spellbook has always been a value rune; it just provides some value over the course of the game. It's not necessarily bad to have a rune that's specifically targeted at more experienced players, but when no pros are using Spellbook, then who's it really for? I think it's best to just get rid of it, and create a new, unspecialized rune that's targeted at newer players. Which I did.

• But wait, /u/1pwny! Generalist Principles is everything you said you don't want! It's actually just stats! And yes, this is true. Generalist Principles indeed does nothing other than help you survive and give you some free value, in the spirit of Unsealed Spellbook. However, I do recognize that it's important that there's a rune for you if you don't know what you're doing, are first timing a champion, or just want to survive. Generalist Principles is exactly that.

• Cosmic Insight was absorbed into Principles, and therefore removed.

• All-Seeing was originally made because I needed a new rune, and just saw a topic about a simple rune giving free wards. I liked the idea. As it stands, All-Seeing only surpasses Magical Footwear in gold value after 25 minutes (1 zombie ward + 4 controls = 350 gold, as opposed to 300). I think that's fine, but you're free to disagree with me. I moved it to the top row to ensure that all three "free gold" items were together, so that you could only pick one. This conveniently moved Hextech Flashtraption to the bottom row, which is now all about movement!

There's one last thought I'd like to leave you all with. While some numbers obviously need work (did I say that already?), I think Generalist Principles is pretty good where it is now (maybe nerf HP/Mana regen to 25% each?). If Generalist Principles is ever the best Keystone for a champion, it's probably not a problem with Principles - it's probably a problem with the rest of the runes.