@Meddler What fighters need from runes and items is target agnosticism and resilience.
Right now fighter items don't really serve fighter's needs, they just provide a bunch of stats; they are more like juggernaut items than fighter items.
#First two items, one which fits fighter's agenda and one which doesn't.
Black cleaver is a great fighter item because it gives them the ability to exert some threat over tanks (just the threat of reducing their armor in a team fight is enough to keep tanks wary). In a sense, just reduction of armor itself is a kind of ephemeral damage-- you don't necessarily have to take away an enemy's hit points to change their behavior patterns. This increases their selection of "available" targets-- which is probably what fighters ought to specialize in, having the most available targets out of any class.
An example of an item that almost all traditional fighters build which doesn't actually serve their specific needs is trinity force. It doesn't significantly increase fighter's target selection (the phage move speed boost is nice i guess), and it doesn't really make the fighter resistant to being bursted before they can "fight". All it does is takes your damaging spells and allows you to do more damage on top of your damage. That isn't really what fighters NEED.
#Now what do fighter's really want?
Items and runes that fighters really REALLY want are those which allow them to continue fighting for just a little longer (fighting, not facetanking-- maybe there are conditions attached to differentiate the two), and which allow them to achieve some kind of victory for successfully fighting, whether it be a reduction in enemy armor, some kind of significant debuff, a semi permanent stacking steroid, gold or experience, or some other kind of incentive-- it doesn't have to be "tons of damage" (although it can be).
Fighters should generally be able to pick any target they want and "fight" with them, maybe to the death maybe not. The fight itself should be atleast somewhat rewarding to the fighter apart from victory. Victory is already available to everyone as an incentive (as a gold and experience bounty), but fighters ought to be able to just FIGHT and gain something. They shouldn't need total victory as the only incentive for fighting, there should be small rewards for just fighting fights for the sake of fighting-- and that is what ought to separate the fighter role from the other roles.
Fighter's kits, items, and runes should give them two things:
- target agnosticism
- resilience
Unlike the domination tree which focuses on target access (being able to access a specific chosen target) and killing power, target agnosticism just means you care less and less about needing to reach any given target because attacking any target (even durable ones) will have some sort of strong effect against the opposing team. The effect doesn't have to be a dead enemy champion (although that can happen if the fight goes on long enough), it can be something else like a brief stat boost for your team, or a debuff on the enemy or something else.
Unlike the resolve tree which focuses on being durable (being able to withstand any kind of damage) and persistent, resilience just means you can withstand, avoid, mitigate, ignore or counter focus fire. If chain nuking were a viable way to deny fighters, then they wouldn't be able to do what is their namesake-- fight. So obviously fighters need a way to absorb focus fire in order to brawl. Fighters ought to die just as fast as most mid laners or junglers to damage from a single source, but dealing damage to a fighter from multiple sources should be barely more effective than doing damage to them from a single source.
