Rune shards give a disproportionate advantage toward offense over defense

PopcornBunni·Mar 17, 2019·74 votes·17,092 views

9 AP: 217.5g 5.4 AD: 210g 10% AS: 250g average 5% CDR : 133.3g

6 AR : 120g 8 MR: 108g average 50.3 Health: 145.9g

Add on top of that the fact that early damage means a much stronger last hit potential, and that point-for-point damage outscales defenses heavily -- 200 AD and 80 AR vs 80 AD and 200 AR guess who wins that tit for tat. Going further is the fact that defenses are worthless against the opposing damage type but more damage is always better.

Final point, the gold value of defeneses is lower than the value for health until champions have 1500 or more health to begin with, which doesn't happen naturally until around level 12 and the 60 or so health from the health rune won't speed that up to any meaningful degree.

And that's all without going into the abysmal named runes in resolve compared to the offensive trees or the tank itemization that has been shit since season 7.

ppl, don't think about the runes as their representation in gold, but rather - what damage you deal.. or receive!

lets take the 9 mr one, as it is the simplest as the game goes on:

most ranged charas have 30 mr pre-items (and runes), which negates 3/13 of the dmg, ~23% with the mr rune, this goes to 38 -> 38/138, ~28% -> difference is about 4.5%

the ap rune, on the other side, gives you +9 x ratio - you know, lets take Karma Q: 80 + 60% ap, so the additional damage is... 5.4.

Each spell (or item, so their ap isn't important here) counts both mr and ap in its damage, so doing the math(s) for one would be enough:

ap rune x mr rune on receiver: 72% x (80 + 60% x 21) = 66.7 (with two ap runes, 69.3) mr rune x ap rune on receiver: 77% x (80 + 60% x 15) = 68.5

~~mr rune WINS!~~

~~KEEP IN MIND! As the game goes on and you get higher mr/ar, their effective stats get lower and lower diminishing returns - save for the penetration effects (oblivion orb/s. shoes),~~ and ranged charas who don't bother buying mr - ie, vs Zyra, Brand, proper build Sona, etc. In that case, these runes are even more op!

Also, lower numbers on the base damage of the spell/attack lessen the effect of the def runes however... er just keep it like a rule of thumb that so long as you have low def stats, they are better k? xd

~~Don't forget that the armor rune can save you from a 360 no-scope Zed all-inning you... and the best cc is death! (well, bar a few exceptions.. xd)~~

final notes:

the cdr rune is basically double the adaptive one late game, if you cap it by items!

~~hp rune! (sr need some red text as well.. xd)~~ gets better if you have real high armor and mr, not total hp! (bar % hp effects ofc) and acts as a wildcard - even though it is considered pointless, don't ignore it :p

Rune shards give a disproportionate advantage toward offense over defense

55 Comments

ppl, don't think about the runes as their representation in gold, but rather - what damage you deal.. or receive!

mr rune WINS!

https://boards.na.leagueoflegends.com/en/c/community-moderation/mouP6um4-boards-usage-guide-part-1-boards-markup

More from Gameplay

More by PopcornBunni