Lessons Unlearned: Why Runeglaive Misses the Mark

Runeglaive was created as a tool to allow AP champs to clear the jungle who could not previously. This is directly cited by Riot as the reason it replaced Magus – Magus simply gave a little extra power to AP champs who could already clear the jungle without it.

By looking at the design of Runeglaive we can see Riot’s strategy: add AoE damage to kits that lack it to speed up jungle clears and relieve some of the burden of mana. However, you get none of these bonuses until far too late.

Lesson Unlearned: Essence Reaver The LoL fanbase was buzzing when Essence Reaver was announced. Finally AD Casters like Jayce, Graves, and Ezrael were going to dominate lane by spamming spells rather than right clicking. It didn’t take long for the community to label Essence Reaver a complete dud. Hiding mana sustain behind 3,800 gold makes it utterly useless – by the time you can complete the item you no longer need the mana sustain. Yet here we are with a mana sustain option gated behind, realistically, 3,000 gold (you’re buying boots, at least 5 pots, and probably a couple wards before you complete Runeglaive). Even worse, this item is intended for use by gold starved Junglers, meaning it takes even LONGER to achieve than if a laner needed 3,000 gold for it.

Lesson Unlearned: Support Itemization Riot knocked it out of the park with the changes to Support itemization (and also Quill Coat and Bami’s Cinder). Tanky supports can get beefy from level 1. Poke supports can trade a little harder from level 1. Sustain supports can keep up the healing a little longer from level 1. Yet AP junglers are expected to fail abysmally for typically 7 levels until they get enough gold to finally upgrade to Runeglaive. Perhaps AP champs don’t need access to an AoE proc and mana sustain at level 1 – after all Riot also specifically mentioned that they believe it is fair for mages to have a really rough time early on in the jungle. But they need support far earlier than 3,000 gold. Tanks got that support in the form of Bami’s Cinder, and previously Quill Coat.

Possible Solution Runeglaive needs a baby Runeglaive (Runepike?) as part of its build path rather than Sheen, which is honestly a very poor item to force AP champs into buying en route to Runeglaive. Frankly, I would prefer for Riot to finally come to the realization that the jungle is a LANE and not a ROLE and add a different starting item that each role can take into the jungle starting at level 1.