Runes Reforged was an abandoned project

When RR launched, it was a super cool-sounding idea. A horrible balance mess, but it was preseason, and that's to be expected since there should be a TON of balance fixes. The issue is, there were nowhere NEAR the amount of balance fixes there needed to be. A quick list of every rune change from release to THREE patches INTO season 8:

7.23: Aery: Damage from 20-60 to 15-40 Predator: Cooldown from 180-120 to 150-100 Zombie Ward: grants 1 gold

7.24 (an actual patch for RR): Precision PtA: Exposure added after damage from third attack. Lethal Tempo Cooldown: 10s-6s Fleet Footwork: Heal from 5-50 to 3-60 / AD ratio: 10%-30% / AP ratio: 20%-40% / Crit modifier (now removed) Overheal: 30% healing to 40% Triumph: Heal from 15% to 12% missing hp Presence of Mind: Duration from 5 to 7 seconds Coup de Grace: Damage from 10% to 9%

Domination Eyeball Collection: Eyeballs per assist from 2 to 1

Sorcery Phase Rush: Ranged champions get slow resistance too

Resolve Mirror Shell: Magic Resist from 5 to 6 (removed from RR now)

Inspiration Kleptomancy: 25 attack range on proc removed / decrease in loot variance over time

7.24b: Sorcery AD/AP path bonuses: With any secondary: 15/25 ad/ap to 12/20 With Inspiration primary: 16/27 ad/ap to 13/22 Manaflow Band: Cooldown from 60s to 75s Scorch: Damage from 30-60 to 20-60

This is every rune change from preseason.

8.1: Predator: 50% crd if channel is interrupted / aoe procs prioritize low hp targets / 50% bonus ms for first half of duration

Resolve path bonuses: Grants less hp and some AD/AP/Attack Speed with Sorcery/Domination/Precision instead of always just HP or DMG

8.2: Resolve Aftershock: Reworked to have lower damage, lower hp scaling, ad/ap ratios, higher flat resist and no % resist increase. Grasp of the Undying: Less healing and hp gain penalties for ranged champions (50%-40% and 2 to 3 respectively) Guardian: Cooldown higher early, lower late / higher base shield early / ratios increased

Inspiration Glacial Augment: Slow increased across the board Kleptomancy: Early drop rate significantly reduced / Mid-Late drop rate slightly decreased for melee, significantly for ranged / Sell values about 20% lower

Precision Coup de Grace: Damage amp from 9% to 7% Last Stand: Max Damage Amp from 12% to 11% Triumph: Gold on kill from 25 to 20

Domination Zombie Ward: Duration from 180 to 60-180 / Sweepers, Control Wards, Scrying Bloom all no longer have to hit the ward to spawn a Zombie Ward (if the ward dies) Ghost Poro: Vision radius from 350 to 450

8.3: Unsealed Spellbook: Summoner cdr from 25% to 15% Perfect Timing: Contribution towards upgraded items from 300 gold to 250 gold / sell value from 120 to 20 Magical Footwear to Tier 1 Biscuit Delivery to Tier 2

• You can start reading again if you skipped the stats

At this point, it's been three patches into the actual season, and the balance is still a mess. They ended up removing the crit modifier on FF, re-working Manaflow Band, removing Mirror Shell and Iron Skin, adding Bone Plating, re-working Ultimate Hat, etc. etc. Nullifying Orb is still useless, Kassadin and Karthus are the only ones who use Presence of Mind, Guardian is basically Braum/Rakan exclusive, FF might as well not even exist, and as fun as it is, Hail of Blades is literally only ever used on Jhin, and it's because of an exploit in his passive interaction. This all is among a bunch of other issues. Preseason needed like, three more patches on par with 7.24a.

Chief among these complaints is that the damage is still WAYYYYYY too high across the board, runes and items. 100% futile effort because THE LCS MUST HAVE TWENTY FIVE PATCHES MINIMUM OF TOTAL META STABILITY, but we need an overhaul to RR like, 12 patches ago. Next to no tweaking during preseason, and even with the changes throughout season 8, the system is still an absolute mess.

TL;DR: Runes reforged was not fixed in the slightest during preseason, and to this day still needs more fixes.